How To Augment Customer Experience With Omnichannel Personalization

Omnichannel personalized marketing is no longer just “nice to have” in today’s marketplace, especially with customer experience becoming a key brand differentiator.

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Consumers are now interacting with brands across multiple channels. Not only do they expect relevant content but they also want the ability to “pick up where they left off” when they switch from one channel to another.

Many retailers consider implementing omnichannel personalization as one of the key strategies to generate growth and increase revenue through providing a customer-centric brand experience. In fact, many retailers see an increase in revenue and new customer conversion rate when they start offering personalized customer experience.

A study by Invesp has shown that personalization has been proven to improve customer loyalty and increase conversion:

  • 53% of online shoppers consider customization valuable.
  • 45% of shoppers prefer to shop on sites offering personalized recommendations.
  • Personalized ads have a conversion rate 10 times higher than “one-size-fits-all” ads.

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However, there are many moving pieces to ensure the successful implementation of such strategy, including the collection, integration, and synthesis of a large amount of customer data and the ability to turn it into actionable insights.

Thankfully, there are many tools you can use to help gather customer data and apply them to improve customer experience. Here are a few helpful features to look for:

Customer Data Management (CDM)

Information on your customers’ behaviors and preferences will help you cultivate relationships and increase retention rate. Data collection is the first step to implementing a personalization strategy.

To see CDM in action, look no further than online retail giant Amazon.com. Customer information is collected and utilized for making recommendations that leads to increase in sales, as well as improving customer relationships with more personal services.

To get the most out of your customer data, you should:

  • Decide on the critical data to collect so you don’t end up having to parse through irrelevant information
  • Clean up your data to avoid duplication
  • Funnel all information into one centralized database to construct 360° customer profiles
  • Avoid siloed internal practice and encourage collaboration between departments
  • Make the information and customer profiles easily accessible to sales personnel in the field.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

After you have constructed 360° Customer Profiles that aggregate your customers’ unique preferences, brand interactions, and habits, it’s time to take that information to the next level.

You can leverage the analytics capabilities of your software to make data-backed business decisions based on the level of brand interaction and projected lifetime value of each of your individual customers.

To leverage the power of CRM, follow these best practices:

  • Create targeted content for specific customer segment to help your brand stay relevant and top of mind. For example, P&G developed the Being Girl microsite to share relevant content with a specific customer segment
  • Use geo-location to target customers who are in the vicinity of a physical store
  • Learn customer habits and preferences to create offers and deliver services that are timely, customized, and relevant
  • Implement Omnichannel marketing and customer care to deliver a seamless customer experience across all touch points

Automated Personalization

You can also leverage the information about your customers to create personalized campaigns and communications that help you deliver the most relevant information to specific customer segments in a timely manner.

This will not only allow you to nurture customer relationships and improve retention rate but also entice new customers to engage with your business by sending out highly relevant offers at the critical moments of their customer journey.

These are some of the ways you can leverage automated personalization to increase sales:

  • Segment and target high-quality leads that are likely to convert
  • Implement personalized lead nurturing campaigns to deliver the most relevant content and offers
  • Increase customer lifetime value by improving customer satisfaction and loyalty with relevant offers
  • Leverage your social media presence to deliver a seamless experience that moves customer along their purchasing path

The Best Marketing Speaks To What Makes Your Customers Tick

The effectiveness of one-size-fits-all marketing messages is plummeting as consumers are becoming increasingly savvy and expect for customized content and offers from brands.

As a marketer, you need to deliver a personalized customer experience across all channels and make sure your copy, content, and offer are highly relevant while appearing in front of your audience in the right place at the right time to get the highest ROI on your marketing budget.

Recharge Your Customer Data

Increase sales by leveraging the power of your CRM data

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has become indispensable for both online and offline businesses. It’s likely that you have already collected a large amount of customer information from existing customers and prospects over time. However, sitting on a pile of data isn’t going to bring in revenue for your business.

Your information is only as good as how well it’s leveraged to engage with your customers and generate more sales. Here’s what you can do to boost your revenue using customer data:

1. Create targeted campaigns

Your data can give you unique insights into each individual customer’s demographic information, interests, preferences, location, browsing history, and purchasing behaviors enabling you to deliver targeted content and offers in the right place at the right time to maximize conversion.

For example, when a registered customer shows interest in a product but hasn’t placed an order, you can send an email with a special offer to entice them to complete the purchase.

According to Forrester, 30% of eCommerce repeat purchases come from email marketing. In addition, targeted campaigns can be delivered via social media, mobile app, and direct mail.

2. Improve customer service

Outstanding customer experience is the key to increasing conversion and boosting customer lifetime value.

When your customers contact your company through various touch points, such as website, social media, or email, the interactions can be recorded in the 360-degree customer profile. Your customer service representatives can use the information to construct a better picture of the customer’s history, pick up where they left off, and offer the most relevant and appropriate response.

3. Support personalization strategies

Personalization strategies have been proven to increase sales and conversion and become the priority of many marketing professionals. Your CRM data can inform a variety of personalization strategies on channels such as website, email, and social media by allowing you to:

  • Offer personalized product recommendations on your website, a strategy that’s found to increase store revenue by 300%, conversion rate by 150%, and average order value by 50%.
  • Use email personalization to deliver relevant and timely content or offers that’ll increase engagement and conversion.
  • Combine customer data with retargeting campaigns, such as social media or Google Adwords, to drive customers to products they’ve already shown interest in.

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4. Attract new prospects

People who share similar demographic profiles, preferences, browsing behaviors, or purchase history with your current customers are more likely to be interested in your products or services. You can use the data from existing customers to determine the audience of your marketing campaigns.

For instance, you can upload a list of existing customers and use it to target a “look-alike” audience for your Facebook ads. In addition, for many B2B companies or B2C merchants selling higher-priced products, lead scoring can be used to identify the most qualified prospects by comparing new leads against the attributes of your most valuable customers.

A powerful customer data management (CDM) system

The ability to leverage customer data starts with a powerful CDM system that allows you to create a single customer view and collect data from multiple touch points. You’ll then be able to leverage the unique preferences, brand interactions, and habits of customers to deliver the most timely and relevant omnichannel campaigns that’ll drive conversion and sales.

This Week in Omnichannel (November 16, 2015)

Here’s what we’ve been reading this week:

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Avocados From Mexico Is Turning Guacamole Addiction Into Consumer Data

A new piece from Ad Age explores how NectarOM partner Avocados From Mexico has used a blend of multiple channels, emerging technologies, and personalized marketing techniques to become the first truly omnichannel produce company. We’re extremely proud to work with them and can’t wait to be a part of whatever comes next.

The New Normal: How Native Advertising’s Changed in a Year

DigiDay assembled writers from marketing news outlets like Forbes, Gawker, Mic, and Time to discuss the ongoing evolution of native advertising. Some of the biggest developments they touch on: the actual growth of the industry (which has doubled in the past year), new ways of presenting ads that maximize audience engagement, and, most importantly, the rise of “off-platform” media such as Facebook Instant Articles and Snapchat as ways for audiences to consume content.

3 Ways to Evaluate and Engage High-Value Customers

Your high-value customers (HVCs) are responsible for driving a disproportionately large share of your revenue – in some cases, up to 80% of the revenue can come from 20% of your most loyal customers. Given that, it’s in your best interest to keep these people happy. If you haven’t thought much about CRM in the past, this is a great place to start.

Teens spend an average of 9 hours a day with media, survey finds

Researchers report that American teens spend an average of 9 ours a day shifting between TV, browsing the Internet, and using a mobile phone. The sheer amount of screen time that young people are exposed to has huge consequences for omnichannel, and means that moving forward every brand should try to maximize their presence in the virtual media space.

We also enjoyed these pieces:

From teens to adults, everyone’s watching online video as much as TV.

Why one writer thinks you can’t win that Facebook fight.

Google and Amazon account for 57% of all online revenue.

Tech is eating media. Now what?

Snapchat Reaches 6 Billion Daily Videos Views, Tripling From 2 Billion In May

Check back next time for the latest developments in omnichannel! We’ll bring you news, facts, opinions, and infographics that will help you gain a broad perspective of the industry. Drop in, stick around, and subscribe to our newsletter – and who knows? You just might learn something.

3 Ways to Evaluate and Engage High-Value Customers

You’ve heard of the Pareto Principle: the rule of thumb that 20% of the work drives 80% of the results. In sales and marketing, we can observe that this principle holds true across all industries, and understand that a huge amount of sales, revenue, and brand interaction can be directly traced back to a few high-value customers, or HVCs.

If you haven’t put much thought into CRM, it’s a good policy to prioritize the creation and retention of HVCs who will give you the most return on your investment. Though the majority of all sales transactions are likely to be one-offs or from occasional buyers, a significant amount of your revenue will be driven by intensely loyal HVCs, who will not only stick by your brand but help promote it. To put it simply: you should keep your HVCs happy because when they buy, they buy big.

What makes a customer high value?

  • HVCs buy for a reason: HVCs look to your products, services, and brand to meet a fundamental need. Whether it’s health, wealth, or status, identifying your business’s raison d’etre will help you serve your best customers more efficiently.
  • They are interested in the next big thing. HVCs will keep checking your website, app, and social media pages for updates and new products. If you make customer loyalty a priority, you can create positive feedback loops that pay off huge in the long run.
  • HVCs are less sensitive to price changes. High-value customers will return to your brand even if they can find similar products for cheaper. It’s not about the cost: it’s about how your business addresses their specific needs in a relevant and personalized way.
  • HVCs will promote your brand. Your most loyal customers will promote your goods and services to friends, colleagues, and even strangers, if they believe in your products and customer service. HVCs bring with them a large social network of potential new clients, so pay it forward!

High-value customers are your business’s Golden Geese: keep them happy, and you’ll set yourself up for huge successes in the long run. And the truth is, doing so is actually pretty simple once you adopt the mindset of putting the customer first and personalizing your services to give each individual the VIP treatment.

3 Ways to Engage High-Value Customers

  1. Reward HVCs for their loyalty. By integrating loyalty data into your delivery providers and personalization tools, you’ll be able to understand when, how and why high-value customers access your site and design useful, personalized touches to interact with them across multiple channels. When done right, loyalty programs remove barriers between your customer and their purchases and streamline their shopping experience. Doing so can empower the customer with  a sense of agency when they realize that their actions have a direct impact on their experiences with you and what services you can offer them.
  2. Pay attention to their recent activity. This information can be used to identify a customer as high value based on metrics such as: frequent site visits, a high clickthrough rate on email and website, and big recent purchases. Someone who can’t get enough of your content will respond well to an increase in messages, especially the triggered marketing that corresponds to important life events or interactions with your brand. When done right, this will prove to customers that you really understand what makes them tick. One appropriate example for a triggered message: if a certain HVC has a record of high overall spend but for the last several months they have not been interacting or buying, you might send them a re-engagement email with a big discount attached.
  3. Evolve with your customers. Changes in customers’ habits which point to increased interest in categories outside of their normal purchase pattern can indicate someone’s shift into becoming a high-value customer. A significant change in what they buy and how much they spend could be a signal that this individual has extended their product trust into brand trust for you, prompting their movement into the HVC bucket.

There are many ways you can use data to help determine who is an HVC by using your personalization tools, and from there it’s a matter of providing your high-value customers with the service and attention that they deserve. In the process, you’ll develop the infrastructure, habits, and mindset that’ll attract and engage new customers at each step of their journey.

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.

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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

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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

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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 make Big Data personal with Segmentation

marketing personalizationWho says Big Data can’t be personalized?

Within the realms of marketing campaigns, generalization is not a word you want to embrace. Sending identical, generic mass emails to your entire customer base across the board  isn’t the route you want to take. This only leads to poor customer retention, customer dissatisfaction and your emails ending up in the virtual trash bin…unopened.

When you’ve got data, you need to leverage it in order to communicate relevant and targeted messages. The content within these emails need to be useful, have purpose and address the needs of your customers in real time.

In order to efficiently segment your data, you need to conduct an analysis based on existing data and decide the target groups you want to approach. Applying segmentation to  your data allows you to create email marketing campaigns that are relevant for each group.  Segmenting is also a key process that disperses information, products and offers to designated groups that’s specific to their needs and interests.

Segmentation can be based on many factors according to demographics, behavioral, lifecycle, occasions, social data, past purchase history, spending habits, age, gender, website activity, etc.  By segmenting all of this data, you’re identifying the various levels of your database and sending out cost-effecting email campaigns that are tailored to each group. Without segmenting data efficiently, it’s difficult to produce targeted information. Not to mention, it’s a waste of time when you’re sending out products & offers that are of no use to your customers.

Segmentation is typically based on the amount of data you have on individual customers and making the most of it. This can be obtained through social data, CRM, past purchase history, website activity, demographic, etc. It’s the process of dividing your customers into logical groups and tailoring emails targeting their interests, triggers, lifecycles, website behavior, and purchase history.  Nectar suite automatically segments customers based on lifetime value and engagement.

Nectar’s products allows your brand to hyper-personalize communications with the right offers and products in real time that’ll drive revenue.

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Why Trigger Marketing Matters

trigger marektingAs They Say…Timing Is Everything

As a marketer, you’re probably thinking about how to acquire, grow and retain customers.  That’s a lot to do! There’s a lot to process as well as consider with marketing personalization. You’ll often hear important key terms mentioned including customer engagement, 360 degree customer profile, big data, CRM, ROI, segmentation, hyper-personalization and one-to-one marketing. These are all necessary components to create successful marketing personalization so your company can deliver the most relevant content in real time.

Amid these components is trigger marketing. In a nutshell, trigger marketing is the engine that hums continuously. There’s a constant stream of messages being deployed to to your customers based on behaviors, browsing history, purchases, interests, etc. Delivering a successful trigger marketing campaign entails combining these pieces of big data, identifying an event in a customer’s life that warrants a need and communicating during these pre-planned points in time.

Having the right road map can make it easier to achieve success and the desired outcome. As part of the email marketing campaigns, triggered email marketing is at the core of helping to drive engagement and revenue.

Delivering a successful campaign is your ultimate goal.  To achieve that, there are 3 key elements to remember…

Find the appropriate trigger – The content within these marketing campaigns should be based on your customers immediate needs.

Cultivate the right offer – Triggers have to be followed up with relevant products & offers.

Timely Execution – Presentation should occur immediately after an appropriated trigger.

As a business owner, you want your campaign to drive both traffic and revenue. There’s always a concern of frequency, value and appearance with trigger marketing. And, the big question lingers…”Do people mind followup emails?” The answer is yes. Keep in mind, though, it’s all about presentation, timing and tone.

Here are some tips to keep in mind for what your customers are looking for…

1.  Acknowledge me. I just signed up to receive emails from your company.  A welcome or thank you email is a considerate means of acknowledging my interest and introducing your company, products, offers, etc.

2. Entice me a little. The operative word is little. There’s a fine line between enticing me and conning me. Why should I become and remain a loyal customer? Based on my personal information, how can your company suit my needs more efficiently and cost effectively then company A or B?

3. Where’s my receipt?  I made a purchase and I’d like to have a transactional email for my records. I’d like to double check to see if my order is accurate and things processed correctly with my bank.

4. Spark my interest. I recently ordered a new bedding set, a few bathroom accessories and some end tables. It’s safe to assume I’m updating my home. I’d be interested in additional products you offer based on my purchases. Window treatments? Kitchen accessories? Area rugs? Go ahead, inspire me.

5. Nudge me a smidgen to try something new.  I’ve worn Crocs flip flops for as far back as I can remember. It’s my brand of choice, however, there’s a chance I order a pair year after year out of habit. Expand my horizons. Is there a flip flop that’s similar made by SKECHERS or Nike? Show me. I might just consider stepping out of the box.

6. I like special treats on my birthday. A gift basket filled with gourmet treats showing up at my door compliments of your company isn’t feasible, I know. However, how about a special offer, discount coupon or, at the very least, a Happy Birthday greeting?

7. Get me excited. Is there an upcoming event that you know I’ll be head over heels about? Let me know about it. As the event nears, send me a reminder or two because I’m busy and I may have forgotten to make note of it.

8. Offer a token of appreciation for my business.  I’ve been a loyal customer for quite some time. Whether it’s a personal note or a 20% off coupon on my next purchase, it’s nice to know my loyalty is appreciated. I’m making the choice to do business with you. Without loyal customers…well, you get where I’m going with this?

9. I’m not a fan of creepy. Offer discretion when analyzing my browsing and purchase history. Any mention in your emails of the amount of time I spent browsing products to diminish the appearance of stretchmarks will be duly noted. This will not work in your favor in more ways than one.

10. Touch base with me. I’m busy. Often times weeks go by with very little time to spare. I may not have had time to browse, shop & make a purchase. I may have even left a product or two in my cart.  Send me an email. Remind me there’s a product in my cart and, if you really want to earn brownie points, offer me a coupon towards my purchase. Score!

As mentioned, with trigger marketing, it’s all about timing, relevancy, tone and presentation. Remember, your customers are real people. Address them as such, respect their time, send offers that fit their needs and time it just right. Capture the attention of your customer by establishing the appropriate trigger. Materialize the immediate needs with applicable products, offers, and information.  With automation and the right set of tools, these triggered events can be both automated and intelligent. Once these fundamentals are in place, you’re ready to execute.

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5 Don’ts for Marketing Personalization

Scattered within the do’s of Marketing Personalization are some don’ts…

 

marketing personalizationWhether you’re the owner of a small business or a lucrative company, there’s a need to get personal with your customers.    Personalization is rendered when information is gathered through various social streams, email, mobile, CRM, transactions, etc. This melting pot creates a 360 customer profile so you can deliver personalized, up to date and accurate relevant content to your customers.

There’s an abundance of “how to’s” in the world of marketing personalization. You’ll find tips and advice on just about everything from the varying levels of personalization & segmentation to the challenges of improving relevancy through data.  What about the don’ts? Are there practices you should avoid when diving into marketing personalization?

 

Yes.

1.  Don’t get too personal unless you’ve got the data to back it up.  Getting to know someone personally takes time.  The same holds true with your customers. You’re not going to establish a 360 profile in 15 minutes.  Collecting valuable data is crucial when incorporating personalization into your marketing strategy.  When there’s not enough data to back it up, you risk delivering information, featured deals, products of interest, promotional offers, etc that are vague and generic.

2.  Don’t be creepy about it.  Suggesting products to your customers based on their browsing and shopping history has a world of benefits. A 360 view of your customer goes a long way however, you don’t want to cross the “getting too personal” line.  For example, your data tells you that Mrs. Jones is expecting and she has recently browsed baby items and made several purchases.  Recommending additional items in a “based on your previous purchases, may we suggest” tone is perfectly acceptable. Sending a quip mentioning the amount of time Mrs. Jones spent browsing nursing bras and commenting on her baby bump “selfie” profile picture…creepy.

3.  Don’t suffer from mediocrity.  On average, about 70% of marketing emails lack personalization on a multitude of levels. Names are misspelled, the content is inconsequential, and the offers hold very little, if any, interest to your customer. If you’re going to embark on marketing personalization, do it right. Make an impact. You’ve got the data so leverage it.  Give your customers a reason to open and read the email. Let them know you’re paying attention to them.

4.  Don’t drag it out. If your customer base is online shoppers looking to score a great deal, grab their attention with the subject line.  Once you have their attention, get to the point. You’ll lure your customers with personalized sales, deals and coupons. Add a few time sensitive “80% off today only” highlights. Don’t dilute the relevancy with bloat and useless fillers. More than likely, your customers care very little about ribbed cuffs and double stitching. Their eyes are feasting on the 80% off discount.

5.  Don’t lose sight of important details.  You can have the most up to date personalized data on each and every customer however, it’s often the small details that can make or break the deployment and customer response.  Avoid these mishaps by safeguarding your form fields, running reports to ensure your data isn’t blighted with errors and checking to see if defaults are set accurately.

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