How Marketing Personalization Increases Customer Loyalty

What Kind Of Data Do You Need To Be Tracking To Meet Your Conversion Goals?

Who are the best kind of customers? The ones that never complain and keep buying from you and tell everyone they love you. You know the type.

They’re the loyal ones.

If you’re trying to grow a solid brand, loyalty should be on your radar. There are multiple definitions of what loyalty means to businesses. While loyalty programs, such as points, miles, coupons, are great, the type of loyalty you want from your customers is blind devotion, and refusal to look elsewhere. The problem is: loyalty is hard to obtain. It takes a lot of work and effort to gain trust, and along the way one slip-up could negatively impact all that hard work. It’s a very delicate process, there’s no question about it, but if done right the benefits far outweigh the drawback.

Exclusive Bonus: Download NowThe Personalization Checklist To Increase Customer Loyalty

Take Apple fanboys for example. There weren’t nearly as many of them around 20 years ago, but now there are tons, and Apple is the most profitable company in the world.

Coincidence?

I don’t think so. They are the best kind of loyal customers, willing to pay a premium for products and line up for days before they’re even out. These aren’t exclusive models either, and, on paper, they’re comparable to ones can be bought for nearly half the price. But people continue to buy from them. Why? These are customers that are loyal because they like the entire process, from the lineup to unboxing.

Gaining this type of loyalty is hard, but with businesses having the ability to capture more data, personalizing content is an easy way to start fostering a loyal customer. Let’s explore three aspects of personalization that you shouldn’t ignore.

1 – Profiles & Behaviors

Data can reveal a lot about someone: where they are, what browser they’re using, what links they clicked and what kind of device they’re on. It’s a marketer’s dream, and this information can, and should be used to help you increase your conversion.

In general, there are two types of data: explicit or implicit.

Explicit signals are hard facts: This user was on an iPhone in Canada, and clicked three links and visited the site four times.

Implicit signals are what you can deduce from the hard facts: It looks like this user was browsing items. Since he’s from Canada, he’s less likely to purchase than an American; but, since he’s clicked three links and been to the site four times, he has a high chance of buying.

Turning implicit signals, which come in the form of data, into explicit signals and determining how you can initiate the sale can be a daunting task. NectarOM can simplify things and help automate this process in real time.

 

Customer profile

Once you have begun tracking your data, your next goal should be to create virtual profiles of your customers by combining data from multiple sources.

A profile describes a particular segment of customers with as much information as possible. This should include info like:

Exclusive Bonus: Download NowThe Personalization Checklist To Increase Customer Loyalty

These are just a few examples of points you can use to build your own persona. When you have a clearer picture of your ideal customer, the next step is to describe them and turn them into real people. Only once you have a profile of your customer can you start creating a plan to market to them. There’s no point wasting your time on strategies that might work.

How somebody is interacting with your content can tell you a lot about who they are and how they will interact with your brand. Generally speaking, mobile use accounts for a lot of search traffic as well as browsing, while computer/laptop traffic accounts for the majority of purchases.

 

2 – Test & Learn Strategies

What a simple world it would be if all leads came from the same place. You could focus all your marketing efforts on one thing and then clean up! But this is real life, and people are complicated. Different people hang out on various sites and can experience a brand in a variety of ways. One may prefer your Twitter feed, and another may frequent your site. Where they access your brand influences what they buy.

You can use this knowledge to your advantage by sending unique channel offers. For example, we all know Instagram is ideal for sharing images, so depending on what kind of images your audience’s feed is filled with, you could make something that blends in and barely looks like an ad. In this example from Qaloring, it’s not clear that they’re selling anything, and all you see is a woman in exercise clothes.

loyalty in marketing imagePeople on Twitter are usually looking for some interesting news, delivered in the iconic 140 characters or less and is a great place to promote your product with a catchy headline that gets people curious. Looking at the example from Ideapod; they play to people’s egos and drum up a bit of intrigue.
indeapod imageAm I smart? Heck yes! *click*

It can also be used to easily tag influencers in the industry to try and drum up some buzz for your product.

Facebook is a mix of the two, allowing more headlines but also a lot of space for an image. This ad from Jetsetter gets right to the point with a clear offer and beautiful picture.
facebook post image

Giving messages that relate to how people like to interact with a brand is the key to success. Make sure you’re not only thinking about the marketing campaign but how people will interact with your campaign over all sorts of channels and devices that you’re choosing to run it on. The more specific and targeted your campaign is, the better it will perform.

Exclusive Bonus: Download NowThe Personalization Checklist To Increase Customer Loyalty

3 – Automated Activation

Knowing all of this information is great, and any business owner should be doing everything they can to leverage this wealth of data that is at their disposal, but if you aren’t using or tracking this information, then you’re wasting your time. We here at NectarOM have an orientation toward action and apply marketing automation, predictive analytics and trigger based communications. Our system allows you to put this data to work. That way you can create detailed user profiles and implement laser precision campaigns.

No matter what your business model is, trigger based messages can help foster loyalty and increase your ROI. Making each customer feel special by delivering content based on their actions is a surefire way to keep them coming back.

With e-commerce, you’re always in the trenches, so to speak, looking forward to that sale and email notification coming through. Automated personalization has been proven to help with cart abandonment, by sending a follow-up email a day or so later. This can help bring people back to the state of mind where they were about to purchase, and could seal the deal.

As a corporate marketer, you’re more concerned with activating users because it’s necessary for continued subscription and a long term relationship. Sending a series of tips during a trial period, and capping it off with a ‘last chance, the trial is expiring’ email is a great place to start, and sure to get a conversation going with customers looking for an extension.

In a brick-and-mortar setting, clienteling, or providing a personal touch to shoppers can go a long way to building loyalty. This is usually achieved by using software to learn about customers preferences, behaviors, and purchases, and then having sales reps connect with customers in meaningful ways.

 

The Loyalty Effect In Action

At the highest level, getting all these systems in place can create machine-learning recommendations, which, if you can attain, mean a constant stream of business. Just look at what Netflix is up to:

“A study from Wharton cited that Netflix reported 60% of its sales came from machine-learning recommendations, and 35% of Amazon sales came from system-generated suggestions. Regarding increasing engagement, Venture Beat reports that personalized email subject lines can increase open rates by up to 41%.”

With industry leaders like Netflix heavily pursuing customization and machine-learning, it needs to be on your radar of things to implement. By keeping your messages relevant and personalize, you’ll be able to not only see the benefits in the form of increased revenue but will be able to keep your customers loyal – and more importantly, coming back.

This stuff can get complicated, and there are a lot of plates spinning in the air. But by focusing on your ideal customers and giving them personal attention, you’ll be able to keep them around. For businesses looking to deliver automated personalized omni channel experience book a free consultation with us here at NectarOM to discuss a strategy for your business.

Exclusive Bonus: Download NowThe Personalization Checklist To Increase Customer Loyalty

SELECTION MONDAY – Let the “Madness” Begin

By Bryon Morrison, Commissioner of The 2016 NectarOM Road to Omni Channel

Every year March always brings a little “madness” into the office. This year is no exception. Marketers across the nation are setting their brackets, but not necessarily for the “teams” you’d expect. This year at the the NectarOM Headquarters the NectarOM selection committee was hard at work finalizing the 2016 Road to Omni Channel Tournament bracket.

Over the last month, each member of the NectarOM selection committee evaluated a vast amount of data and industry information for each industry category or “conference” during the selection process. A review and discussion of the brands performance based on product sector, fiscal performance, e-commerce endeavors, innovation, and their use of digital – determined selections, seeding, and bracketing.

Selection Methodology
After examining a wide field of competitors the NectarOM selection committee determined the 2016 Road to Omni Channel Tournament bracket would be divided into 4 conferences: Consumer Electronics, Shopper Marketing, Telecom and Department Store Retail.

Qualification and seeding for the tournament was based on the following criteria:

  • Digital and Brick and Mortar Retailer
  • Fortune 500 Company
  • The team communicates with customers in at least three channels
  • They have established domain authority
  • They have been recognized as innovators in other studies
  • They have been recognized in other third party evaluations as leaders in their respective categories

The Teams
After a grueling deliberation the NectarOM selection committee has finalized its brand bracket and is proud to announce the companies included in the 2016 Road to Omni Channel Tournament.

The Road to Omnichannel Brand Bracket

Department Store Conference
Nordstrom
JCPenney

Telecom Conference
AT&T
Verizon

Consumer Electronics Conference
Best Buy
GameStop

Shopper Marketing Conference
PepsiCo
Dr Pepper Snapple Group

Game Scoring
Over the course of the next two weeks these eight institutions will go head-to-head in the hopes of being named The 2016 Road to Omni Channel Champion. To have a better understanding of what these companies are doing in Omni Channel Marketing, each brand will undergo the NectarOM Customer Journey Audit. This audit evaluates eleven communication channels, 6 degrees of personalization, and each brand’s adaptability to customer knowledge. Covering more than 150 review points, this audit provides valuable insight into customer lifecycle, consistency, marketing gaps and opportunities through the view of the consumer and results in a final score illustrating their prowess in Omni Channel Marketing.

Tournament Schedule
The Road to Omni Channel Tournament will start Tuesday, March 15, with a highly anticipated match up of Consumer Package Goods titans, PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, from the Shopper Marketing conference.

Tune in here for Game One: //nectarom.com/shopper-marketing-conference/

Tell us in the comments below which brand you think has what it takes to win it all.

How Big Data is Changing Valentine’s Day

I get a bit nostalgic around Valentine’s Day. During the era of my childhood years, thirty-some years ago, Valentine’s Days was simple. Classmates exchanged tiny cards and, if you were lucky, the envelope was stuffed with a few heart-shaped, chalky confections. We’d get our fill of chocolate hearts and sugared gummies. On the way home from school, the sidewalks were crowded downtown by the florist and candy shop. Love was in the air. So was the blissful scent of roses and homemade chocolates.

Fast forward thirty years later to the here and now. For a most of us, handwritten cards and waiting in line at the local florist, where the owner knows your name, is a thing of the past. We’re too busy. Rush. Rush. Rush. We’re pressed for time. Yet, February 14th sneaks up on us. It’s around the corner, looming over our heads like a dark cloud. What to do. Where to shop. What to buy. Somewhere amid this mental fiasco, the sentimentality fades. Valentine’s Day. What happened?

Times have changed. Valentine’s Day has blown through the roof. It’s a massive marketing holiday and companies ranging from 1800 Flowers to Doritos have jumped on board. Many of them are also using Omnichannel Personalization and Big Data to improve their results. They’ve fine-tuned the process of segmenting email lists and running targeted ads to personalize how people shop for their Valentine and the overall customer experience. This includes gathering data about relationship status, life changes, identifying the customers’ needs and continuously updating customer profiles in real time.

From a customer’s standpoint, it’s difficult to associate words like Omnichannel, Hyperpersonalization, and Big Data with Valentine’s Day. It’s not exactly something you want to talk about over champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. However, keep in mind, what’s going on behind the scenes, is what gives you an infinite amount of convenient ways to find inspiration, get creative, browse, make purchases, and avoid landing yourself in the proverbial doghouse.

Without those personalized emails giving you the “hint, wink, nudge”, Valentine’s Day can easily spiral into something complicated and messy for the absent minded. Lucky for you, the hand of digital marketing eases its way into your daily routine. Tapping its fingers on your desk. Waving its hand in front of your face. Brushing the crumbs from the front of your suit. “Hello! Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. You need to start thinking about it now!”

There is no doubt; Valentine’s Day is the most romantic holiday of the year. There’s a lot of pressure all the way around. Whether it’s choosing the right gift that’ll make your loved one swoon or deciding where to dine and making reservations on time, the process of planning and shopping is much easier than it was 10 years ago.

Technology gives you an endless stream of choices to ease the pressure and stress. For the clueless romantic, you can easily get lost in the virtual world of gifts. Let’s face it; most of us are beyond wanting chocolates and flowers. We crave out-of-the-box. Something unique with a touch of whimsy. From custom whisky stones or a Big Bang Theory Plush Soft Kitty Bouquet, nothing wins our affections more than something that says, “I know you. I get you.”

However you choose to celebrate Valentine’s Day, the age of all-things-digital and Omnichannel is making it easier all the way around. You can exhale. The doghouse is all but a thing of the past. Planning the perfect evening is no longer tedious or tiresome. You can stroll to the quaint corner Italian Restaurant with ease. Reservations are made. Nestled in your pocket is the box, neatly wrapped with a red bow on top, to surprise your Valentine with. Delivered on time. And later, after a boozy nightcap of sweet merlot, there are apps to enhance the much anticipated evening rendezvous. We’ll leave that for you to explore.

3 Killer Abandoned Cart Strategies

Marketers have found that on average, 67.45% of online shopping carts are abandoned before customers check out. That’s a huge number of missed sales, and that’s why abandoned cart remarketing was developed.

Traditional abandoned cart platforms operate on a simple logic: Set a trigger when customers leave your website without finishing their purchase. Trigger an email with product info. Rinse, repeat ad nauseum. This basic trigger is pretty much a ground floor requirement for eCommerce websites, but most of them are highly limited in their logic and don’t don’t utilize data from CRMs or Customer Data Management Platforms. They’re missing out on valuable opportunities to reach customers with compelling reasons to revisit their abandoned carts.

Here are three ways you can reconnect your customers with their carts by tapping into your customer data sources:

1. Trigger messages on previously abandoned items that go on sale.

abandoned cart0

Surveys report that the top 3 most common reasons for shoppers to abandon their cart are related to the price of their items. When you let your customers see an item that they’ve previously considered has gone on sale, it’s just another reason for them to reconsider their purchase.

Example: Trisha abandoned a pair of blue suede shoes 3 months ago, but now these shoes are on sale. We’ll send her a triggered message alerting Trisha that her shoes are on sale.

Requirements: customer purchase/abandon history integration, sales category for products for trigger

2. Product recommendations in abandoned cart emails

abandoned cart1

Example: Jasmine purchased a grey backless dress and abandoned her cart before checking out. Our software will send her a triggered message with her abandoned item along with additional products that may interest her, just in case she’s decided that the dress didn’t match her needs.

Requirements: depends on the complexity of recommendations…simple recommendations can simply be built from product hierarchy modeling (grey dress is in same category as several other dresses), more complex variations will need software capable of predicting customer needs by combining lifecycle, purchase, lifestyle, clicks, etc

3. Trigger abandoned cart emails to users that are anonymous

abandoned cart3

Example: Sarah has made an account before, but is browsing the website anonymously. She puts an item in the basket and abandons the cart. The system recognizes her unique ID and triggers an email.

Requirements: 1:1 digital tracking service required to attach unique id to known profiles, automation system to connect the dots, validate confidence, and fire message.

With a powerful enough system, you could probably pull off all 3 mentioned abandoned cart strategies for increased ROI. There’s still time for brands to utilize abandoned cart remarketing to the fullest, and newer, tested technology enables companies like NectarOM to build the capabilities needed for marketing personalization across the omnichannel frontier.

How to Market to the Fastest Growing Consumer Segment in the U.S

Mobile Personalization

Consider this: the U.S. Census Bureau projected that minority groups will overcome the majority, rising from 37% to 57%, by the year 2060. The reason for this dramatic increase can be attributed to the massive growth in the Hispanic population, expected to double from 53.3 million in 2012 to 128.8 million in 2060, making up 53% of the minority demographic, and 31% of the entire U.S. in the year 2060.

 

Companies and brands have taken notice of this staggering statistic and realize it is absolutely vital to capture this market right now. We offer some tidbits in marketing this elusive minority market.

 

Appealing to the Hispanic culture

 

Invest the time and effort to learn about the culture of this demographic by recognizing their habits, attitudes, and values. One important characteristic of Hispanics is the value of family and community. In fact, 78% of Hispanic survey respondents said that traditional family is the main building block of a healthy community. More than half of the respondents identify themselves first as Hispanic before American, and 97% responded that they are proud of their Hispanic heritage. It is clear that understanding their deep cultural tenets will lead to more success in connecting the individual with the brand.
Additionally, brands need to recognize that there are different groups of Latinos from various countries including Mexico (the largest segment in the U.S.), Cuba, and Puerto Rico among others. Hispanics value family, faith, community, and intertwining these deep-rooted values and ideals using Spanish idioms with cultural relevancy will make the brand attractive to each respective segment.

 

Mobile Personalization

Don’t Just “Sell”, Build Long-Term Relationships

 

Hispanics in America are growing tired of marketing campaigns by brands that are not appealing to their cultural roots. They are more likely to respond positively to companies and brands that take the time to understand who they are and build long-term relationships. Therefore, they cannot be thought of as a short-term investment like a fad or trend, they must be thought of as a strategic long-term investment.

 

The reason why this type of brand-relationship building is necessary can be traced to the differences in culture between their countries and the United States. While the Puritan values of America have prevented copious amounts of corruption, in Mexico and other Latin countries, briberies and corruption are rampant. Subsequently, Latinos value their relationships highly, more so than individuals born in the United States. This little nugget of information is valuable to brands who wish to serve this untapped market because it forces them to invest in them long term, rather than short term.

 

Appeal to Coupon-Savvy Latinos

 

While coupons may not have been an integral part of the culture in their home countries, during the recession, the usage of coupons amongst Hispanics grew 51%, according to a study by Synovate in the United States. Hispanics are smart shoppers, and thus delay purchases until products are on sale.

Mobile Personalization

Social media and mobile usage has exploded among Latinos, accelerating the use of mobile coupon offers and promotions. Bottom line: they are more likely download coupons using the convenience of their mobile phones. Using marketing personalization techniques such as targeted promotions via e-mail, this segment may not be as hard to target as previously thought.

 

These are just among the few tips to market to this diverse and growing segment. Marketing personalization can help target these consumers by giving brands the tools they need to communicate in a respectable and relevant way. nectarOM’s products would be a great resource to start off with, using nectarEngage to send specific emails to specific Hispanic segments. All in all, brands may believe ignoring the market would be better off than investing the effort and time into understanding Latinos, but doing so would deprive them of returns in the long run.

 

 

3 Tips for Gaining Brand Power

Customer Service

Customers are the base of any successful business. Without customers, you have no sales. While this is the most obvious tenet of having a business, customer experience and brand loyalty are often overlooked. Consider an example of a retail clothing brand that is known for its superior quality at the least expensive prices in the industry. They have achieved superiority to other brands, and in theory should hold a monopoly in the retail clothing industry, but strangely, their sales are not as high as projected and are even losing customers to competitors. There are 3 main issues with this retail clothier, and they are all related to customer experience.

 

1. First Issue: High product quality, low customer service.

Just because the product is higher quality and more reasonably price doesn’t mean everyone will purchase it. If a customer comes in the shop, questions the quality or price, and is met with a rude sales clerk, the unpleasant experience will lead the customer to spend extra money at a different store and spread negative word of mouth for the company. This reason alone explains why a superior store might be languishing with poor sales and loyalty.

 

2. Second Issue: Know your customer better than the competition

Even if a company has great customer service in addition to quality and price, another obstacle for achieving a loyal customer base is to simply know your customer. If Jane Smith likes to wait to buy sweaters on sale, the next time she is browsing the store online, it is up to the retailer to target an e-mail to her with this specific information. It will connect the consumer with the brand while simultaneously promoting positive word of mouth press.

 

3. Third Issue: Stay in touch with customers often

One tactic of growing brand awareness and customer loyalty is by acquiring their personal information; whether by signing up for newsletters, collecting it through surveys, or asking for information during checkout. By taking these approaches a company can strongly increase brand loyalty and stimulate sales by informing customers of when and what is on sale, prompting a call of action. While it is a commonly known that this type of communication push may be considered bothersome, a survey by Adobe showed that 75% of customers want companies to use their personal data to improve shopper experience.

 

Having superior quality and price is only one piece of the puzzle to having a successful company. You must evaluate your customers and value their tastes, opinions, and most importantly their word of mouth. If used properly it can be leveraged into a powerful free marketing campaign to boost brand awareness but if utilized incorrectly it can be harmful.