personalisation2Personalization is currently one of the hot topics in the world of marketing, although it is actually a simple concept that has been around for decades. It refers to focused and tailored interactions with one person, based on what is known about that person, with the decisive factor of relevance.

To ensure being relevant begins with basic things such as using the correct name of the customer in the email or providing  tailor-made content, which involves knowing the individual surfing habits and demographic characteristics.

However, to get personalization right holds a number of challenges, yet it is much easier than you think at first - especially if you tackle the personalization in small, manageable steps and do not complicate things. With this in mind, the following tips may be helpful to personalize your digital marketing:

1. Consider the context
Start with your business needs (e.g. lifecycle programs, sales conversions) and create a benefit you can offer customers (e.g. better brand experience, relevant offers, memories). That is the basis, you should always consider in respect to personalization. You must define KPIs and metrics that substantiate the ROI, which in turn means that you need to identify data and insights needed to create personalization rules. Besides that, check if you have the right tools and resources to implement the changes.

2. Make use of your data to get to know your customers
As said, every application for personalization would be just as successful as the data and insights that are behind it. Hence, make sure that your data is as accurate as possible. The use of a central data management system is usually the key to successful personalization here; however, this is a complicated task. At this point, it is in fact very complicated when the single customer view and traditional customer databases meet the digital data management. Bring each of these elements in the best possible shape before trying to combine them to a 'Single Digital View of the Customer'.

 

3. Get the right insights to make the right decisions
Define analytical requirements based on your business needs to ensure that you are able to oversee what happens, what works and what does not. Your technical skills should offer you the opportunity to gain the right insights at the right time for a delivery through the right channel.

Ideally, this should be done by a single, central source. In reality, however, consistent customer knowledge for each channel is already a good progress. Besides, the importance of the definition of the target group should not be disregarded. No degree of personalization, no matter how high, will work if the offer is not interesting or relevant enough for the customer. Once the right people have been identified for the right offer, you need to work on the content and the advantages that allow you to personalize the content and the message to enhance your customer experience and conversion rates.

4. Get the right software and the right employees

Allowedly, the "holy grail" would be a software that controls any content and any data, decisions and channels. Anyway, the truth is that in reality, we have not arrived there yet, and it is highly unlikely that a software provider will ever be able to offer the best solution for all channels. The best start is choosing the right solution in order to focus then on the internal resources and skills that are needed to use not only every single tool as good as possible, but to do this consistently across all channels. An important step here is the automation of rules that enable customer interactions without manual interventions and which should have priority. In the field of emails, for instance, this means setting up lifecycle and event-driven campaigns as well as developing rules for dynamic personalized content (within template emails) for all relevant non-automated campaigns.

5. Make sure to get it right!
If you are too personal, or are sending the wrong message to the wrong person, the brand experience and the customer's attitude toward the brand may suffer. Remember though, it is mostly about customer satisfaction. The common goal is to provide better interactions that are more relevant. Therefore, be realistic and make sure that you are working within your possibilities. Start with lighter and stronger sales activities and check the value of personalization. Based on this, you should continue to develop, improve and test - and above all, never stand still,

Should there be interactions with your customers in the digital world, please be aware of the fact that these things can always evolve and change quickly - so stay tuned!

By Daniela La Marca