Personalized marketing has changed digital advertising. With the amount of data that brands have at their fingertips, generic ads no longer cut it. Research shows that 63% of consumers are annoyed with the way brands continue to blast generic advertising messages.
Personalized marketing isn’t only for e-commerce brands. It’s for healthcare companies, higher educational institutions, legal services, and more. This makes it a marketing tactic that every company can and should get behind.
We’re looking at how personalized marketing has created a shift in advertising that’s leading brands to find new ways to maintain relevance.
What is personalized marketing?
Personalized marketing, or one-to-one marketing, is the practice of using data to deliver targeted brand messages to an individual. You may be asking yourself: “What does this process look like?” Say you have a customer who wants to spend the summer perfecting his lawn. That means he may be in the market for a new mower and researching his options online. After visiting your website, your business would retarget him with digital and social media ads about the mower he viewed, as well as serve ads encouraging him to join your email list for a discount. Lastly, your business would start emailing him lawn care options to consider.
The benefits of personalized marketing
Consumers don’t view ads as annoying. They view irrelevant ads as annoying. In fact, 42% of respondents say it’s frustrating when content isn’t personalized. To back this up, in a survey of 1,000 consumers aged 18-64, 80% said they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences. 90% claim they find personalization appealing. These numbers speak for themselves.
Gone are the days of throwing content out into the digital sphere. Brands are finding it’s time to anticipate the needs of each customer, and speak directly to that need.
How to offer your audience a personalized experience
Let’s dig right into it:
1. Know what they need before they need it. The goal of personalized marketing is figuring out the buying habits and intentions of your audience. If you know that a consumer has visited a certain page on your website, or you know when they last purchased a product from your company, you can determine when they might be reaching out to you.
This is your time to send out the emails, blog posts, and ads that show you’re not only thinking of them, but also understanding and anticipating their needs by sending relevant information to build a relationship. Not in a creepy way – but in a way that’s helpful and says, “Hey, don’t forget that you were looking at this earlier. Maybe you’re ready to buy it now.” The truth is that people get distracted all the time and fail to follow through on purchases or reach out about services. If you can gently remind them with a helpful email or targeted ad, it’s likely that they’ll remember why they started their search in the first place and jump right back in.
2. Keep track of their online activity. It’s important to know what your consumer has followed through on and what’s still sitting in their virtual cart. If they’ve made an appointment for a health consultation, for example, and the next day they get an email asking them to sign up for a free consultation, they’re going to be confused. The consumer might wonder, “Did my request not go through?” Or, “Was there an error on my end?” Or worse, they might wonder, “Is this company not paying attention?”
Your personalization strategy and your CRM (customer relationship management) should keep track of this data and provide relevant, up-to-date information about potential customers. Also, keeping track of a prospect’s online history helps you know what messages resonated with consumers and what ultimately led them to trust your products or services.
3. Anticipate their next move. If you have the advantage of knowing your customer’s personal details and browsing behavior, you can predict what’s coming next. Think about when you go out for dinner at a restaurant you frequently visit. Since you are often found eating at this restaurant, you’ve likely built relationships with the serving staff. With anticipation of your needs in the back of their mind, your favorite waiter is likely to ask you if you’d like “the usual.” It’s smart, and this same type of experience can be offered through personalized marketing.
If you know a consumer clicks on a lot of your content, send them relevant blog posts, podcasts, and information about your business or brand. Make them aware of new service offerings, or send them coupons for their next visit. Successful personalization gives them reasons to keep coming back for more.
Do you need help creating a personalized marketing strategy that’s unique to your business and your customers? Our inferno team can handle it. Contact us today.