PERSONALIZATION TO INCREASE CUSTOMER VALUE: BEST PRACTICE EXAMPLES

As we saw in the previous post, one of the most recommended tools to create customer value around your product offer is to make use of personalization. I will tackle personalization from an online perspective.

In a study by Janrain, it was found that 73% of consumers were fed up with being presented with irrelevant content. According to US marketers, the value of marketing automation goes beyond the top of the funnel. It also improves the performance of almost every other stage of the buyer’s journey. The infographic below, from Marketing Automation:Popular Tools & Trends, explains additional benefits associated with personalized marketing automation and customer relations.

As stated by Jose Perez in his post: How personalized marketing can increase your eCommerce sales, the key to personalized marketing is to create messages and actions tailored to the visitor based on their previous viewing and purchasing behaviour.

Having all this reasons to implement personalization in our company in order to increase customer value, how can we deliver personalized messages to our customers?

-       1. Requesting an email address after the visitor has displayed some intent to buy. It can be used to send them an automated email inviting them to look at the items they have in their shopping cart or email them with top sellers based on their last transaction. According to Experian’s 2013, personalized emails generate on average 6x more revenue than non-personalized email and recommended products automatically generate 46% more revenue than products that we select.

-     2. Personalized product recommendation engines. Amazon is making use of this tool in a very effective way. One option is to show items that have been frequently viewed, considered, or purchased with the one the customer is currently considering, but they also employ a method based on browsing history.

According to a MyBuys study of more than 100 top Internet retailers, recommending products in the shopping cart based on a user’s purchasing or browsing behaviour resulted in a 915% increase in conversion rate.

3. Modify website on real time, based on customer behaviour. This tool, commonly known as behavioural targeting, allows to modify the website to target different types of users (new users, users who have completed more than 3 purchases in the last month, unregistered users, etc). After a certain behaviour has been observed we can modify the website in the following ways (display a pop-up with specific content for specific visitors, a pop-up to capture unregistered user mails, replace existing web content, add or delete items).

The brands that will truly personalize the customer’s experience are those that take a hybrid approach to the above solutions. The combined approach of predictive intelligence and customized customer journeys will definitely increase engagement and drive sales, making brands industry leaders.