Personalization in Digital Marketing

Every individual has their own taste in music, clothing, and shopping. So, if you are in the digital marketing industry, you may know that personalization in marketing is the most effective strategy for having successful branding. In today’s digital era, where everything is made explicitly for individual needs, targeted marketing is the core of a successful business. 

According to a 2021 report by McKinsey: 

• Companies that employ personalized marketing strategies, such as customized customer experience, see an average revenue increase of 10-15 %. 
• 71% of customers expect brands to provide personalized content and interaction. 
• 80% of customers prefer to buy from companies that offer customized recommendations. 

That said, personalization in marketing significantly affects building lasting relationships with customers and increasing ROI. 

One of the best ways to get started with this project is to understand customer journey mapping. 

A simple visual or infographic of that map provides valuable data, helping you develop data-driven personalization. This means that for each customer, depending on their position in the marketing funnel, you can decide what type of content or support is needed to push them further. 

This article discusses the importance of personalized marketing and its strategies. Once you deeply understand the core concept of personalization in marketing, your business strategies will become the easiest and most effective ones. 

So, let’s get into it. 

What Is Personalized Marketing? 

Personalized marketing is one of the core elements of data-driven marketing, which involves relying on research, gathering data, and building strategies based on that information to improve performance and enhance customer experience. 

In other words, personalized marketing refers to any marketing activity that provides businesses with value propositions based on the personal needs and interests of the audience. It is also an evolved type of targeted marketing that targets and delivers messages to customers individually, tailored according to each customer’s needs and preferences. 

The first step to personalization in marketing is gathering customer data and developing strategies or systems that automatically offer services or products based on those data. 

For example, when you search for a specific product and visit a website, you may see other offers or products similar to the one you had in mind, recognized by unique features, factors, or similar keywords. 

Moreover, personalization in marketing is often employed in marketing strategies with a customer-oriented approach rather than a company-oriented approach; this means sales strategies are created based on customers’ needs, behavior, and preferences to increase customer satisfaction and sales. 

A company-oriented approach, on the other hand, is when companies try to offer the products or services they currently have instead of focusing on customers’ needs. This process is often done by a robot or programming that observes customers’ behavior on the website or search engines, providing enough information about customers’ preferences to help you develop customized marketing strategies later on. 

What Are the Benefits of Personalized Marketing? 

With traditional marketing, people always receive irrelevant calls and messages, which can be annoying. That’s why they usually either hang up or show no interest in your offer. To them, these messages and ads they see are pointless and irrelevant to their desires and needs. They also know that most companies do this for their benefit and don’t care what you need. 

Online digital marketing, on the other hand, recommends personalization, considering individual differences, preferences, and desires. This approach helps them open the door to effective customer communication, build strong relationships, and show reliability.  

Here are the reasons why personalized marketing is important and its benefits: 

#1. It Is the Basic Customer Expectation 

In recent years, customers have seen many customized offers, so naturally, their expectations are set on personalization in offering products or services when they browse for what they need. Research shows that about 71% of customers expect businesses and companies to provide personalized interactions such as one-on-one calls or direct messages that answer their questions directly. On the other hand, 76% of customers get disappointed and leave when they don’t get this.   

When it comes to performing better than your competitors, it’s essential to observe customers’ needs and meet their expectations. This approach also significantly improves customer retention and increases reliability. 

#2. Improves Customer Engagement 

Proper personalization strategies can make marketing messages more relevant and desirable to the audience, increasing their engagement with your offer. 

For example, personalized content such as email or blog posts or customized product recommendations, especially on e-commerce websites, often leads to a 90% increase in CTR (click-through rates). This means customers prefer customized content and interactions and engage with messages that feel more personal to them. 

#3. Customer Retention and loyalty Becomes Easier 

Another benefit of personalized content and marketing is increased trust and loyalty. When customers feel that you care about them and your ROI, they feel safe and trusting. This feeling provides a safe place for customers to maintain their relationship with you because they trust you are there for them. 

#4. It Boosts Conversion Rates 

When users and visitors visit your website and find content or offers that match their needs, they are more likely to convert. Therefore, proper customization and personalized offerings can go a long way and significantly contribute to increasing the conversion rate. 

Key Strategies for Implementing Personalization 

Personalization in marketing refers to shaping the user experience and creating a special bond with each user. 

But where to begin? How do we start creating this bond? 

Information is power. So, the first step to building a solid foundation for personalization is gathering customer data, which includes understanding their desires, age, location, and trends among the target audience. 

But it’s only the beginning. So, here’s how you can get started and what to focus on: 

Create Dynamic Content 

We all know that good content plays a significant role in marketing. Usually, website content is static and the same for each user, but things change with customization and dynamic content. 

Dynamic content refers to web or email content that changes based on customers’ behavior and preferences or other specific data points. This type of content is adaptable and changes in real time depending on location, purchase behavior, browsing history, or demographic information like age and gender. 

An excellent example of dynamic content could be an e-commerce website displaying different product recommendations to users based on their preferences and browsing history. 

Here are the key features of dynamic content:

• Real-time updates: the content adapts itself to new data and changes dynamically. 
• Personalization: content is enhanced to meet individual or segmented audience’s needs. 
• Contextual relevance: The content can be adjusted according to factors like location, time, gender, or user interaction. 

If you plan to use dynamic content in marketing, it reveals its benefits, mainly in email marketing, online advertising, and websites, to increase engagement and enhance user experience. 

Audience Segmentation 

Before customizing your marketing strategies, you must have a proper audience, categorized into different groups based on demographic factors. For this purpose, lead generation tactics come in handy. Attracting an audience and gathering data can help you understand and categorize your audience according to that information. This also enables you to understand your audience better and provide relevant marketing messages to each segment based on their preferences. 

Another benefit of segmentation comes into light when running campaigns. The ultimate goal for integrated campaigns is to deliver a unified and consistent message to the audience across multiple channels, such as social media. Therefore, knowing your audience in segmentation allows you to maintain that consistency for each group with different preferences while integrating the whole campaign as a unified marketing effort. 

Personalized Email Marketing 

Email marketing has proven to be an effective way to generate new leads and helps you convey and promote your products or services on a large scale. The primary goal of email marketing is to build relationships with customers, boost engagement, and drive more sales. Personalized email marketing is customized emails crafted particularly for individuals based on their preferences and behavior. Customizing your emails for each individual brings a more personal message. It creates a better relationship that leads to increasing interest in engaging and taking the desired action, like buying a product. 

The key elements that help you with personalized marketing are: 

Customer data: information like browsing history or location that helps you craft the follow-up email relevant to this data. 

Behavioral targeting: Analyzing customer behavior, such as abandoned carts or previous purchases, allows you to send relevant emails, such as considering a limited discount, to encourage them to complete the action. 

As discussed earlier, segmentation is also an excellent technique for knowing your audience or email contacts based on shared features and sending emails accordingly. 

The result of personalized email marketing can vividly be seen in increased CTR, which, according to research, is up to 26% with customized emails.

Leveraging Predictive Analysis

Predictive analysis is another effective way to customize marketing, which involves using historical customer data such as past purchases and engagement patterns. This information helps you make predictions about future actions or preferences. 

For example, if a customer frequently buys athletic gear, predictive analytics may suggest they are also interested in the new products. Based on this analysis, you can proactively send personalized recommendations or promotions. 

This approach provides enough information on the customer’s needs and preferences. It also provides you with resources to deliver customized messages and relevant content, which improves customer experience and satisfaction. 

Personalization Tools 

The emergence of AI in business, especially in marketing, has been super helpful to the point that marketing automation is almost impossible without the power of AI. These tools are software solutions that help you create a unique experience for customers when interacting with your business. 

Generally, automation tools rely on customer data such as behaviors, demographics, and preferences to automatically adjust the content, offers, messaging, and customer relationships, resulting in a personalized experience. 

Here are some of the marketing automation tools that are valuable in customization in marketing: 

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) like HubSpot and Salesforce 
• Marketo by Adobe 
• Optimizely for A/b testing 
• Segment for unifying customer data 
• ActiveCampaign, which combines CRM and email marketing 

Personalizing Customer Support

You may think the important part of the marketing funnel is the beginning, from lead generation to conversion. While that’s true, there is a small piece left out: customer satisfaction. This step of the marketing funnel is as crucial as attracting new leads because, let’s be honest: happy customer, happy business life! 

Therefore, when closing deals, it’s essential to have a customer support service to back up your customer needs and questions. When it comes to personalization, this process gets slightly more customized based on the customer’s needs after purchasing. 

A small example of personalization in customer support is personal contact support for each customer to ask questions and provide feedback in one-on-one calls or messaging. 

Psychologically, having someone to help customers, guide them, or answer their questions creates a sense of security. Naturally, customers who feel safe interacting with you and feel cared for even after paying up will most likely return to you the next time they need similar products or services. 

So, how do we provide flawless and personalized customer support? 

1. Provide context-based support: Such as assistance with the customer’s current situation. 

For example, if customers need help after making a purchase, the support team can contact them and provide support based on the customer’s purchasing history. Having access to the customer’s history reduces the need for customers to repeat the issue after every step. 

2. Resolve customer issues instantly: It’s important to be there for customers if anything comes up to maintain their satisfaction.

Quick, personalized responses to complaints, such as offering a refund or product replacement, help restore customer trust and prevent frustration. 

3. Use a knowledge base to address customer needs: similar to providing personalized content, a knowledge base can help customers find their answers quickly. 

This well-organized knowledge base includes FAQs, educational articles, manual PDFs, or relevant content. This approach helps customers solve their issues without contacting customer support. 

4. Anticipatory support: This strategy relies on predictive analytics using data patterns, providing insights into possible issues customers may encounter before reaching out. 

This is helpful in customer support and satisfaction in two ways: 

First, it shows the reliability and experience of the brand in interaction with customers, and second, it shows that your team is thoughtful enough to set the ground for the possibilities and be prepared through prediction and foresight. 

Personalization in Marketing Best Practices

While customization in marketing has many benefits, it may also have some challenges, especially for new business companies. 

Here, we explore some of these challenges any marketers might face: 

#1. Understand and Segment Your Audience: Knowing and understanding your audience’s needs is the foundation of your marketing efforts. After all, you want to convey your marketing message and promote your product to your audience, so it’s essential to take the time to understand what they need. The next step is to divide them into smaller groups based on information like location or gender. This helps you to send more relevant targeted content to each group, increasing engagement and conversion rate. 

#2. Customize Your Content: All the data you gather from the audience comes in handy when crafting content. Make sure to provide dynamic content that adapts to individual preferences. This can be personalized product recommendations or email messages based on user behavior. 

#3. Comply with Data Regulations: According to GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), companies must be compliant when collecting, storing, and using personal information. Keep your customers’ data safe and maintain their privacy. 

#4. Personalize But Not Too Much: Over-personalization may create a feeling of intrusion for customers. Constantly targeting customers with highly customized ads and offers can be overwhelming and lead to disengagement. Maintain balance. 

#5. Leverage Technology: Use automation tools like CRMs to build reliable relationships with customers and stay in touch for customer support. However, consider the tool’s cost and practicality. 

Wrap-up: Personalization in Marketing is the Hidden Key to Success 

When it comes to competitive marketing, personalization is no longer an option for brands; it’s a must. The ability to deliver personalized experiences and create unique bonds with users can significantly improve customer satisfaction and business growth. 

After all, the ultimate goal for every business is to increase ROI while having happy customers by their side. 

To leverage the power of personalized marketing, companies can start by gathering customer data and crafting personalized emails and dynamic content according to that information. This approach delivers a unique experience for each user that aligns with their needs and brings reliability and credit to companies.