Marketing

Define Personalization: Best Practices To Build Customer Loyalty

personalization can happen through email.

Personalization is a powerful tool in marketing that a business can use to improve their marketing campaigns.

Messages can be personalized for the target customer which connects with them better and increases conversion rates.

Personalization can be even used outside of marketing. We’ll offer some useful tips and steps to implement it with your own business.

What is personalization?

Personalization is when a process of individualized information is tailored to an experience. Personalization should enhance the experience for individuals and create a better connection.

Think about if you are buying a gift for a loved one. You’re not going to be purchasing something random. If it’s a loved one, you’ll know what they like, dislike or need and you can buy their gift based on this data. 

Personalization through business can mean the same thing. Businesses often collect data on their customers and this can lead to better-personalized experiences for customers present and future

Examples of personalization

Personalization is done by the business. They modify the experience for the customers, but what does this actually look like? Here are some examples.

When Facebook is showing ads or related posts that is personalization because Facebook is modifying your experience. 

Below shows a Facebook post, from Shutterstock with a targeted ad. Based on their personalization preferences set we were shown this ad.

As we talk about below, companies use all sorts of data. Since we’ve been browsing “royalty-free images “on Google it’s not surprising we were shown this personalized ad on Facebook.

Personalization example from Facebook.
Personalization example from Facebook.

Another example of personalization is Spotify’s recommendations for albums, songs, or artists. Spotify analyzes customer listening history, engagement patterns and overall activity on the app.

They use this data along with other users with similar information to personalize recommendations for you.

Below show’s Spotify’s recommendations for a user. For someone that listens to a lot of rock, it’s pretty clear why they would get this recommendation.

Personalization example with Spotify.

What is personalized marketing?

Personalized marketing is a powerful tool business can use to have better marketing campaigns. Why?

It’s because campaigns that are personalized for prospects or existing consumers are going to connect with them better

Personalized marketing is when you tailor your marketing based on the data collected. This way you can personalize your marketing efforts to perform better with each campaign. 

You can even get creative with personalized marketing depending on the data you have. Different data can be collected (there are more data points, the list could be endless):

  • Geolocation
  • Source
  • Browser or device type
  • Gender
  • Purchases made
  • Age
  • Lifetime value 
Google Analytics is a great tool for personalization.
Google Analytics is a great tool for personalization.

What are the benefits of personalization?

Personalized marketing is a great concept for business owners because it benefits everyone. 

Better customer experience

A personalized experience improves the customer journey for all your customers. Through personalized marketing, you’re speaking to their needs, wants or desires. Instead of just another marketing campaign, it becomes more relatable

Once someone understands what we’re looking for, we become more willing to interact with them. It’s breaking down those barriers a customer can put up to gain the trust of a business. 

A better ROI

Marketing campaigns cost time and money, sometimes a lot of time and a lot more money. Not personalizing marketing campaigns leads to unstable results. The audience you’re marketing to won’t feel inclined to take action and interact with your brand. 

Another key benefit of not personalizing is you could be sending a marketing message out to the wrong audience. Let’s say you sell dog leashes.

Advertising to people that have a cat or no animal at all would be a waste of money. These people wouldn’t be buying your product or even paying attention. However, if you were to able market to only dog people your chances of success become a lot higher. 

Improved brand loyalty

65% of business purchases come from returning customers. It’s also 7 times less expensive to retain customers than to acquire new ones.

What do these statistics tell us? Customer retention is important and customer retention comes from brand loyalty.

Personalization marketing makes attracting repeat customers easier, but also creates a better experience for all customers; prospects or existing ones.

People are more likely to become repeat customer that personalizes their experience to them. It allows them to feel that businesses are helping them.

Challenges of personalization

Personalization and even personalization marketing are great tools businesses can use, but it does have their own challenges.

Questions like where do I get customer data or what if your customers have different needs? All of these can be answered. 

Gather data the right way

A personalized experience starts with data, but where do you get this data? You can’t have a personalized marketing experience if you don’t have the data to target – this would be called gambling your marketing budget. 

But all jokes aside using a CRM software can be an amazing tool to capture information. CRM systems can also collect this information automatically. 

Interested in using a CRM? Check out Breadstack.

Utilize customer information with Breadstack.
Utilize customer information with Breadstack.

Whether you have a CRM in place or not, there are ways to capture this data. The first one is analytics. You’ll be able to track people’s behaviour on your website with a piece of code on your website. 

The second method is asking customers for forms, and surveys. There’s a reason that a lot of businesses ask you to fill out surveys. 

Be mindful of the data you collect from your customers. Even asking yourself about the personalization level can help keep your customer data respectful without going over the top. 

Create balance

Do you like when you search for something on Google and then the next time you visit a social media site it shows you what you were looking for? You’ll get mixed opinions on this type of subject and yes this is businesses offering personalization. 

Balance is key with personalization even without a marketing context behind it. Delivering your ads at the right time can ensure your audience actually wants to see the ad and it won’t be seen as aggressive.

Segment your audience

Unless you’re selling a particular product or service your audience is going to be different. If we look at a clothing store that sells every piece of clothing you’ll get a split audience.

It could be people interested in coats, pants or anything else. Using analytics you’ll be able to see certain customers interacting with a certain style or even just constantly looking at pants. 

Now, if you have a sale on pants, you could send the campaign to all your customers but you could also just tailor it to those customers that have been looking at pants. 

You won’t be wasting funds or your customers’ time by sending them information they don’t necessarily care about.

Personalization statistics

More and more businesses are using personalization within their business, whether it’s to improve customer behaviour, sales conversions or marketing campaigns. 

Here are some interesting statistics. 

71% of consumers expect personalization

72% of customers will only engage with personalized messaging

97% of marketers witnessed a rise in business outcomes as a result of personalization.

Want to find out how to increase customer engagement? Read our article “How to improve customer engagement?”

Creating a successful personalization plan

Step 1: Decide on a team

Personalized marketing should be taken care of by at least a few members of your team. If you have a dedicated marketing team, great!

If not, getting a few people that know tech, product guidelines, and customer outreach will go a long way. Getting to know an audience and data analytics is going to take some work.

Step 2: Collect information

Capture data can be from a variety of resources like surveys, forms, asking customers, or collecting data through customer activity

Remember, privacy plays an important role. You want to respect your customer’s information at all times. 

Being honest and open about why you use data can build trust with customers. Customers expect the worst sometimes, so it’s good to be open.

Step 3: Organize data

Once data is collected organize it in any way you see fit. Are you separating demographic, buying habits, and customer descriptions? Great as long as it’s organized. 

Not all data will relate to marketing, pick the data points you want to use for marketing, but hold on to that other information it can be useful in other areas of your business. 

Step 4: Start personalizing

Personalized marketing can be used in any of your marketing campaigns whether that’s google ads, social media ads, landing pages or personalized email marketing. 

Now, you’ll be able to have targeted marketing campaigns that can speak to the right customers

Use personalization with Breadstack

Personalization can be easier said than done, but now you have the right information to get started. 

These few tips and steps we mentioned above can help give you success with personalization whether it’s for marketing or not. 

Personalization can go a long way to improving relationships and overall increased revenue. Breadstack does offer integrated personalization with our unified commerce platform. 

It helps you engage, delight and converts every customer you interact with. 

Product recommendations on Breadstack

Breadstack can collect and utilize customer data to offer personalization. It can be done by agents offering product recommendations through our live chat service. 

Agents can also offer coupons and promotions based on customers’ past history in real-time. Improve sales by connecting with customers and personalizing their experience. 

Ready to offer a personalized online experience for your customer?