Why Do Marketers Need To Evaluate Their Personalization Efforts?

Aumcore-sq-logo
Aumcore
  • Date Published
  • Categories Blog
  • Reading Time 7-Minute Read

This article explains what personalization marketing is, and its importance. It also answers why and how marketers can evaluate their personalization efforts.

Personalized marketing is no longer just an interesting buzzword. In the present climate, understanding the importance of personalization in digital marketing and then adjusting campaigns accordingly can provide great success. Most companies today are able to generate their own personalized marketing statistics and then build specific content across multiple channels such as social media, PPC and eCommerce.

So what does personalization mean in marketing? Essentially, it involves interacting with customers via content that targets them directly and makes them feel that their interests are being strongly considered. Companies tailor content for individual users depending on their characteristics and preferences from the data they have collected. Personalization can be considered an important element to increase both revenue, leads and your overall customer base as you are able to segment consumers into specific subsets and then target them accordingly.

The Importance of Personalization

Other important questions you will need to ask yourself are, what are the benefits of personalization and why is important to your overall marketing strategy? There are many pros and cons of personalized marketing but it can be an incredibly powerful tool when used effectively.

Research backs this up. Just in regards to email campaigns. when personalized they receive 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates while on a wider scale, businesses who personalize web experiences see an average 19% increase in total sales. If you are not personalizing your campaigns, it’s clear you won’t be able to maximize your sales.

Every personalized marketing strategy begins with collecting useful user data and forming a data-driven digital marketing strategy. The success of each campaign will depend on how well you collect and measure customer data. Whether it’s building email list segments or conducting customer surveys, you can collect different data sets and learn more useful information pertaining to your users. Once you have enough data, you can paint a picture of your typical customer and then properly personalize your marketing campaigns to increase revenue.

Hyper-Personalization

Hyper-personalization is incorporating this approach but taking it much further than an email campaign that just features a customer’s first name. It combines behavioral traits with real-time data and requires a brand to have a deep understanding of its own products and customers following which they devise a customized marketing strategy for maximum effect.

As an example, a shopper browses a website for hiking boots and simultaneously the website recommends similar products based on their individual search history and then later sends a push notification showcasing a flash sale involving the products they were previously browsing. With customers increasingly expecting tailored experiences and highly curated product offerings from companies they interact with, hyper-personalization is no longer a trend that smaller retailers can afford to ignore.

So let’s take a look at some personalized marketing examples of brands who are nailing their approach and forming rooted connections with their customers:

Spotify

With over 5 billion streams, Spotify’s Discover Weekly feature has been incredibly successful. By studying individual music choices and cross-analyzing this data with the preferences of other users who listened to the same songs Spotify can create a highly-personalized playlist for each user. Alongside this, Spotify sends emails to users about live events where their favorite artists are playing along with an option to buy tickets. All their content is personalized and based on the music preferences of each individual user making it an incredibly valuable tool in their marketing arsenal.

Amazon

Amazon has been pioneering personalized experiences for years. With a huge inventory and a variety of membership options, Amazon has taken full advantage of the way shoppers interact with its website. Their homepage is personalized for each customer based on previous shopping habits, wishlists, and shopping carts. By then anticipating the customer needs the company makes it easier for someone to find what they want as well as discover new products. The company uses both historical and real-time data to gain a deep understanding of its customers, increasing overall customer satisfaction with hyper-personalized marketing techniques that encourage more sales and conversions.

Netflix

With Netflix, personalization starts on the homepage. Netflix users can rate what they are watching and indicate what their likes and dislikes are. Coupled with the stream count of the content and the individual user profile, Netflix’s algorithm can then predict which content may be favored by users. By successfully combining behavioral attributes with predictive learning, Netflix sends recommendations to its users about content and improves the overall user experience on their platform

How Marketers Should Evaluate Their Personalization Marketing Efforts

In order to effectively personalize and evaluate your marketing methods, there are several different aspects you will need to include in your strategies for the coming year, namely:

There Is No Such Thing As Too Much Data

Marketers can collect customer data at every touchpoint across the buyer journey. When marketers know exactly what a specific customer is searching for or is clicking on, it becomes easier to put relevant content, incentives, and recommendations in front of them. Tracking metrics such as email opens, link clicks, shopping cart data and purchase history are all vital to forming a well-rounded strategy. The more data you collect, the more effective your personalized content will be.

Be Personal Across All Channels

Once this data has been collected and segmented, you can start implementing strategies across all channels, platforms, and sites. This needs to include everything. Email campaigns, social media, company websites, and third-party ads all can have an effect when personalized. You need to engage with your audience in the places they like to be spoken to and build a well-rounded strategy that incorporates all channels effectively, your approach will be much more successful as a result.

Impact The Customer Journey

It’s crucial to ensure your personalized messaging connects with every stage of the digital customer journey. In the beginning, marketers can offer incentives or recommendations to pique consumer interest. However, once a customer moves something into their cart, it doesn’t mean the journey is finished. Sending reminder emails and keeping the shopper’s cart top-of-mind to encourage a purchase has the ability to turn one-time shoppers into repeat customers.

Update and Refine

Just like any other process, personalized marketing practices require continuous review and optimization to ensure effectiveness. A best practice is to let a campaign run for a few weeks before analyzing the results. This allows you to take a step back and evaluate strategies and elements of a personalized marketing campaign to see what worked, what didn’t, and what you can learn from this moving forward.

Final Thoughts

Answering the question, what is brand personalization can be tricky but when done right the rewards can be well worth it. It can help increase revenue, retention, and loyalty as you build an engaged customer base. Essentially, personalized marketing looks to create a seamless buying experience for your consumers. By making them feel like an individual as opposed to a number, you can help your brand to stand out from the crowd and forge lasting bonds with your clientele.

Author Bio: Experienced in digital strategy and content management, Therese helps clients build relationships with consumers through thoughtful displays of creative media at Aumcore digital agency NYC-based company that can help with brand identity services.