4 Ways to Increase Seasonal Sales With Personalized Content on Social Media

How to use personalization technologies to drive more traffic and increase sales

Consumers are bombarded with marketing messages from retailers during holidays and seasonal occasions. They’re more selective about the brands they engage with and purchase from.

In fact, 63% of consumers are annoyed by repeated generic advertising messages. On the other hand, 79% of the companies that exceed their revenue goals use personalized marketing to reach their customers.

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Personalized marketing is the key to increasing conversion, and social media platforms offer a lot of opportunities for retailers to leverage the latest personalization technologies to boost revenue.

Here are 4 ways to use personalize content on social media:

 

1. Segment your audience

The foundation of any personalization strategy is to understand the preferences, behaviors, and habits of your target market. Social media marketing allows you to leverage customer data and segment your audience at a granular level so you can deliver timely and relevant messages.

In addition, your content should relate to the audiences’ customer lifecycle stages. During seasonal occasions, many consumers would actively research products and make purchasing decisions. Your posts should provide the relevant information to shoppers with a high purchase intent.

 

2. Focus on one-to-one interactions

Consumers want meaningful interactions with brands. Instead of constantly selling your products, focus on being helpful and relevant to build trust and relationships with your audience.

Monitor all your social media profiles to ensure that you’re answering inquiries or comments in a timely manner. In addition, engage your followers in meaningful conversations — for example, you can ask a question, take a poll, or tag your loyal customers for more personalized interactions.

 

3. Leverage the power of conversational selling with messaging apps

Messaging apps are popular among consumers, and brands are using these features (e.g., Facebook Messenger) to tap into the power of conversational marketing.

With the aid of AI technologies, it’s now possible to deliver highly personalized shopping experiences at scale via messaging apps. You can combine consumer data available on social media marketing platforms with your customer database to deliver meaningful interactions that’ll drive engagement and conversion.  

 

4. Use retargeting ads to reduce cart abandonment

Sales lost due to cart abandonment is a particularly acute challenge during the holiday season and merchants can recover some of these sales by using retargeting ads to re-engage shoppers on social media.    

For example, you can use Facebook dynamic ads to show the exact product a customer has viewed on your website. You can segment the target audience to deliver a highly personalized message or a special offer to increase your conversion rate.

 

Increase the effectiveness of personalized content with customer data

While social media platforms allow you to access a large amount of user data, you can augment the effectiveness of the content by layering on your own customer data to deliver the most relevant and timely information.

By using a robust customer data management platform that supports multi-channel campaigns, you can leverage your database to reach shoppers that are most likely to make a purchase.

Request a demo today to see how our unique personalization solution can help you increase seasonal sales on social media.

4 Ways To Use Personalization For Healthcare Marketing

Apply marketing personalization to augment patient experience and improve patient retention.

The healthcare industry is becoming increasingly competitive while patients expect interactions with a provider to resemble other consumer experiences.

In order to stand out from your competition, as well as to attract and retain more patients, your medical practice needs to deliver an excellent patient experience that makes receiving care from you convenient and seamless.

With the aid of advanced marketing technologies, many businesses are now delivering personalized user experiences that have helped them increase customer acquisition and retention.

These strategies can be applied to the healthcare industry as well and here’s how you can augment your patient experience:

1. Personalized website content

Sharing helpful and relevant content with your audience and patients can help build trust and relationships. In addition, users are more likely to return to and engage with your website if they can find what they need easily.

You can program your website to show customized information and make content recommendations to the visitors based on a variety of criteria. For example, the search terms they use, the links they click on, the pages they have visited, or in the case of registered users, their medical histories and preferences.

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2. Customized patient portal

More and more consumers prefer to manage their relationships with service providers online via a self-service portal. A customizable patient portal can help you deliver a seamless experience that’ll improve patient retention, reduce errors, and lower administrative cost.

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Deliver a fast and convenient experience by incorporating each user’s medical history, preferences, and other personal data into the patient portal experience. Posting reminders and offering the ability to schedule an appointment, pay invoices using saved payment information, and order prescription refills are a few examples of this.

3. Targeted email marketing

Marketing automation and email personalization have been proven to generate an ROI of as high as 400% when combined with proper segmentation and content targeting strategies.

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By sharing targeted content that’s most relevant to each recipient, you can stay top of mind and nurture relationships with your audience. Such content can include information on specific medical conditions, event announcements, and seasonal resources.

You can also improve patient retention or re-engage lapsed patients by sending out reminders for regular checkups or vaccination visits and make it easy for users to set up an appointment through your online portal.

4. Omnichannel patient support

Consumers want to interact with businesses through their preferred touchpoints and be able to “pick up where they left off” if they switch channels in a middle of an interaction.

They also expect such interactions to take their histories and preferences into account so they can receive personalized content, recommendations, and solutions.

By using a customer data management platform, you can set up a single customer view to facilitate patient communications and ensure that your team is accessing the latest information in real-time to provide the best support possible to improve patient satisfaction.

Survey Respondents Mark Personalization Initiatives as “Top Priority” for 2018

NectarOM recently conducted a Marketing Personalization Survey in partnership with the Texas A&M Retailing Summit. This survey inquired about each company’s existing personalization efforts and which initiatives they are currently using, as well as their primary obstacles to implementation and where they hope to be in the future. Over 75 percent of respondents to this survey said that they were either in the process of putting omnichannel personalization methods in place, or that it was on the roadmap for the upcoming year. With such a large majority of companies still in the inception phase of their omnichannel journey, the outcomes from this survey give us an important glimpse into of where these businesses are with their omnichannel strategy and where they hope to be in the near future.

 

Among the many revealing takeaways from the survey, some of the most enlightening outcomes center around how company leaders rate weigh their current personalization initiatives, as well as what methods they feel need to implemented in order to keep up with their competitors.

 

Current State of Affairs

 

One of the most important factors impacting putting personalization methods in place is how familiar and amenable company leaders are with those methods. While over 58 percent of survey respondents said that their company leaders are familiar with the concept of personalization, another 42 percent said that the exposure level varies with various leaders within their organization. Similarly, 50 percent of respondents felt their company leaders know how to execute a personalized marketing campaign, while 40 percent said that the answer was dependent upon the individual company leader in question.

 

Most survey respondents (70 %) replied that they rank their organization at a medium level of maturity in their marketing personalization efforts. When asked what tools they are currently using to collect and manage consumer data, the leading answers were customer relationship management software (CRM) and data management platforms (DMP), with nearly 64 percent of respondents saying that they are currently using both platforms.

 

Room for Greatness

 

Beyond each company’s existing capabilities, NectarOM also asked survey respondents where they see the most opportunity for growth. A whopping 70 percent of companies said that they are using or are interested in using a distribution platform to personalize their marketing campaigns. This includes distribution platforms such as an email service provider, mobile app push, or website widget. This number was closely followed by other personalization solutions including CRM, DPM, and content management systems (CMS), which were each marked as a priority for 60 percent of survey respondents.

 

In addition, when asked where they see an existing opportunity for omnichannel implementation over 83 percent of respondents marked evolving to meet customer expectations as the primary reason for building their omnichannel offerings, while more than 58 percent of respondents replied that their top reason for building personalization initiatives would be to focus on a more customer-centric approach.

 

Obstacles to Implementation

 

The preceding statistics leave one resounding question unanswered: With so much interest in expansion through omnichannel personalization, what are the main barriers holding these companies back from full-scale implementation? While 58 percent of survey respondents feel that their companies have sufficient budgets to implement omnichannel personalization, nearly half (41%) of survey respondents don’t feel that their companies have enough allocated to get the job done.

 

Interestingly, 60 percent of survey respondents work for companies making over $1 million dollars a year, along with another 40 percent of survey respondents whose companies make from $100 million to over $10 billion dollars a year. Despite these substantial budgets, half of these company representatives don’t disagree with the idea that their business is behind their competitors in terms of executing personalized customer experiences.

 

Plan Looking Forward

 

Perhaps this is why in a recent Periscope Study by McKinsey, over 71 percent of respondents listed personalization initiatives as either their utmost marketing priority or among their top three foremost priorities for the coming year. Among the channels which will be used to build personalization, McKinsey survey respondents listed email and social media as their primary focus. Email is also where NectarOM survey respondents saw the most opportunity for their companies to grow their personalization efforts. In fact, 100 percent of the individuals that NectarOM surveyed checked email as the primary channel where they saw potential for activation.

 

These results point to an increasing awareness among company leaders of how deploying marketing personalization initiatives across existing channels such as email and social media can increase sales and build customer loyalty. What remains to be seen is how these companies deploy these initiatives in the coming year and how each business’s efforts impact both their relationships with their customers and their bottom line.

 

Watch our session to learn more about our survey findings.

Single Customer View Increases Effectiveness of Omnichannel Marketing

Imagine your customer got an email from your company with a coupon code for your online store. She decided to head over to the retail location a few miles away so she could get the product on the spot.

Unfortunately, when she arrived at the store, she was informed that the in-store system doesn’t have her information and she wasn’t able to redeem her discount.

Not only was she left unsatisfied with your brand but she’ll also be less likely to return to make a purchase. In addition, it’s very likely that she’d get sidetracked and never purchase the item.

This and similar scenarios aren’t uncommon these days when customers are interacting with brands via multiple touch points. They expect to move among them seamlessly – able to “pick up where they left off” on the previous channel.

For the past decade, retailers have been focusing on establishing a presence in a variety of channels, such as online, in-app, social media, phone, and in-store. However, such siloed customer experience is no longer sufficient.

Customers not only want to interact with a brand and make purchases on all channels but also have all their information accessible via all touch points so they don’t have to go back to square one when they switch channels.

Onmichannel customer experience integrates all customer interaction in one single database. This means customers can seamlessly move from channel to channel when interacting with a brand. By providing such a customer experience, you will be able to:

  • Move customers along their purchasing journey faster and increase your conversion rate
  • Nurture leads more effectively by augmenting the quality and relevance of your communications
  • Effectively provide customer support to increase customer satisfaction and reduce cost
  • Cultivate customer loyalty and increase retention rate

In order to create such an experience, businesses need to switch their fundamental approach to marketing. Instead of focusing on disparate strategy for each channel, you need to turn the attention to the customer.

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Customer Centric Marketing Starts With Single Customer View

The creation of a 360° profile of a customer is the foundational element of customer-centric marketing.

This profile is created by gathering information from multiple data sources and moving it into one centralized location so it can be further analyzed and utilized.

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The use of a single customer view allows you to:

  • Turn your focus on each individual customer to create targeted messaging and offering that will increase conversion and loyalty
  • Better predict customer behaviors and be more responsive to market trends and consumer demands
  • Make better decisions in choosing new promotional channels
  • Use marketing automation more effectively

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Going back to our frustrated customer at the beginning of this article, this means she would be able to get an email about a discount and apply it to any retail channel, including online and in-store. She would be able to apply the promotion at the retail location, get the item she wants, and, in turn, be more likely to purchase from the brand again.

Single customer view has been applied by many brands successfully to boost campaign ROI and increase sales. For instance, since implementing the strategy, Speciality Fashion Group’s most recent 200 EDM campaigns have delivered an ROI of 2,200%. Clarins have used a similar strategy to identify VIP and create a sense of exclusivity that makes a selected customer feel special and valued.

Overcoming the Challenges Of Implementing Single Customer View

It’s not always easy to implement single customer view. Consolidating all customer data from multiple channels is one of the biggest challenges faced when implementing omnichannel marketing strategies.

If you have been in business for a while, you know how challenging it is to integrate fragmented customer data collected from different touch points over time to get a complete cross-channel view.

The key to overcoming such data gaps is technology integration, which will give you the ability to collect a cohesive set of data for each individual customer and make it available for further analytics and utilization.

Instead of having to cobble together data from different sources, omnichannel marketers can now bring together all customer information to create a master customer profile with tools such as NectorOM’s suite of solutions to get the most out of their customer information with functions such as data management, customer relationship management, personalization automation, omnichannel hyper-personalization.

Get Ready: 3 Customer Personalization Trends to Look Out For

When it comes to a brand’s relationship with its audience, it’s all about customer personalization. Customer personalization allows companies to better relate to their customer’s needs and give them a deeper connection to a company. Customer personalization bridges the gap between online experiences and in-person interactions with customers.

Consumers are looking for more ways to connect with a brand, and companies are looking for more ways to increase revenue and track marketing efforts. This makes 2017 the year to focus on personalization. Here are a few customer personalization trends guiding the online experience in 2017:

 

Enhancing Online Brand Experience

Online shopping is by no means a new concept, but brands are currently working to better connect with consumers online. Common ways to personalize, and therefore enhance, the online brand experience include dynamic content and personalized recommendations. By tracking what consumers look for on a site, companies can personalize the way their site interacts with each customer. This gives everyone a unique experience and encourages them to come back.

One prime example of a personalized online consumer experience is Amazon. Each time a shopper looks at one product, they are then showed similar products, things people have bought, and more. This is all done with the intent of guiding a customer to make a more informed decision.

 

Optimized Messaging with Customer Data

The average person spends just a few seconds on a page before they decide whether or not to stay. This short attention span makes the content you show them that much more crucial. It’s in those few milliseconds that personalization can make a huge impact.

To do this, companies need to gather the right information about each person who visits their site, so they can better target their efforts to catch that person’s eye. There are multiple methods companies can use to gather data to help with customer personalization. This includes proprietary scoring, targeting algorithms, and more. These processes can help track a person’s every interaction with your brand other similar online brands to provide a personalized experience. Even if someone is a new user to a site, companies with the proper algorithms in place can look at their personal history to improve the content it shows.

Companies such as NectarOM simplify the data collection process to help companies better target messaging and in turn see higher customer engagement that increases overall sales.

 

Geo-Targeting Marketing

We as a culture are constantly sharing information online, and brands need to take advantage of it. More and more people are becoming comfortable sharing their location online. This allows companies to target content based on a person’s location. Geo-targeted marketing – also referred to as proximity marketing – allows companies to combine online and offline for an improved, cohesive customer experience.

Proximity marketing allows a company to feed the customer their message at a time when they are most likely to take action, based on their location. Proximity marketing uses technology such as chips in products, enabled location services on a smartphone, and in-store WiFi to better reach its customers.

Personalization is imperative for any company that wants to reach its customers online. People aren’t looking for a company that just shows them what they have to offer. Instead, people want to buy from brands that pay attention to them and provide them with custom-tailored content. When it comes to personalization across all channels, companies like NectarOM make simpler to reach customers and increase revenue.

Building an Omnipresent Restaurant Experience

THE RESTAURANT ECOSYSTEM HAS CHANGED AROUND YOU

Customers interact with your brand long after they walk through the door or finish their last bite at your restaurant. Now customers experience your brand in more ways than ever – online, in-app, in-person and at home. The question is how do you capitalize on all those interactions to increase sales?

Easy powerful personalization makes it easy for restaurants to build, operate and scale their omnichannel personalization capability.

Click HERE to learn more 

Three Reasons Why Email Marketing Really Works

Benefits of Email Marketing

In a world where social media, blogging, and SEO take precedence, email seems like it would be on its way out the door. However, with the business world obsessed with acquiring consumer data, email marketing is not only useful but essential to companies.

Email marketing is one of the most effective and reliable channels for marketers to interact with customers. Here are three reasons why email marketing really works.

1.Easy Way to Reach Mobile Customers

Email marketing is an easy way to reach consumers on mobile without investing in new technology or software. Email channels already exist and are a traditional medium of connection, making it simple to reach consumers. According to a report by Pew Research Center, 52% of cellphone users in the U.S. access their emails via mobile phones. With many consumers constantly on the go, email marketing offers companies a way to send a greater volume of content to consumers in a quick and efficient manner.

Email is also accessible on devices other than mobile phones. According to a study done by Forrester Research, consumers opened 42% of retailers’ emails on smartphones and 17% on tablets. Essentially, nearly 60% of email marketing messages also double as mobile marketing messages. This versatility puts email at an advantage in comparison to text messages and SMS messaging. Consumers are more inclined to open email messages because emails are more accessible. Texting, on the other hand, is only available on mobile devices. Email is also free for the consumer and company while texting risks the chance of an incurred charge on the customer’s end. This diminishes the satisfaction of customer experience and can drive customers away. Also, email marketing is an easier access point for consumers and conveys more content that is useful to consumers.

2. Email is a Transactional Medium

Consumers see emails as a way to get offers, coupons, promotions, and in-stores sales. Email marketing deals drive in-store sales, making product emails key to getting consumers to engage with a product. A study performed by Nielsen found that 27% of online shoppers subscribe to emails in order to save money. 64% of consumers have printed out coupons found on email marketing campaigns.

Since customers expect to see offers and promotions in product emails, they are more likely to be in a buying state of mind. In turn, this can turn into increased revenue opportunity for companies. E-coupons are becoming a huge business with the growth of online sales, and email marketing is at the heart of it. Email marketing reaches out to online bargain hunters and provides consumers with a way to save online and in store. The transactional framework that email marketing provides also allows companies to personalize more toward consumers, engaging them more and further increasing sales opportunities.  

3. Tells You What Works

Email marketing allows companies to see what works and what doesn’t. The data obtained from email marketing provides metrics to see how emails are performing and what companies can do to improve email strategies. These insights allow companies to market their products smarter and better. Learning what works because of email marketing also gives companies a better understanding of the needs, interests, and desires of the consumer base. Companies can see the clickthrough rate of an email, which can then provide data as to how shoppers interact with the online shopping platform. Companies use the information provided by email marketing to not only cater to what consumers are looking for, but to better improve the interaction between consumer and company. By using email marketing, companies can track customer activity and better serve their interests.

Some say email marketing is dead. However, email marketing works. It keeps customers engaged and opens channels of communication between the company and its customers. With email marketing, companies can be in the right place at the right time.

How 3 Top Brands are Using Personalization

These days, customers want to feel that they’re being heard and understood by their favorite brands. In fact, 73% of consumers want a more personalized shopping experience. Personalization allows brands to create a unique experience for their customers — in turn, demonstrating that they are being heard, and hopefully contribute to increased sales volume.

And, it is working. According to a study done by Infosys, 86% of consumers are influenced by personalization when making shopping decisions. Consumers are motivated to purchase more when they are made to feel relevant.

Thus, personalization has become increasingly important for brands and their success. Let’s take a look at three brands that are succeeding by bringing personalization into the consumer journey.

Burberry

This 156-year-old brand has pioneered a different kind of personalization for customers. Partnering up with Pinterest, Burberry has given customers a way to build personalized boards with product content provided by Burberry.

The “Cat Lashes” promo initiative offers a personalized experience for customers based on their makeup preferences. Users take a quick questionnaire and get personalized makeup looks and tips through a personalized Pinterest board. Burberry promotes their Cat Lashes Mascara through the Pinterest boards. The personalized boards also offer tips on how to create relevant looks for each customer while also using the Cat Lashes Mascara.

According to an internal study, 42% of consumers have bought products based on promoted pins they saw on Pinterest. Burberry’s “Cat Lashes” initiative is, therefore, capitalizing on Pinterest’s broad consumer base. The personalized boards serve as a promotional hub for the Cat Lashes Mascara, as well as related and relevant Burberry products.

GILT

Gilt.com was listed in Fast Company’s Top 25 Innovative Companies in 2010and ranked first in fashion that year. How did a company, which launched in 2007, garner so much success in just five years? The reason is that the online retailer personalizes sales and promotions for each customer and app user.

The luxury flash sales site has installed a personalized user page online and on the mobile app. This personalization feature is called “Your Personal Sale,” and goes beyond the daily e-mails a shopper receives. The personalized sales, generated by an algorithm, takes into consideration a customer’s entire shopping experience. Based on factors such as purchase history, geographic location, browsing behavior, and personal preferences, “Your Personal Sale” finds fresh items and deals daily. Personalization goes one step further, with Gilt.com also considering size, categories, and brands that customers frequently engage with. Each personalized sale lasts 24 hours, after which a new set of deals and sales are presented. According to CIO Steve Jacobs, personalized sales are “the next phase of the flash sale model.” The company leverages the sense of discovery the app provides, “tailoring [the] shopping experience just for them.”

Gilt.com brings personalization to the online fashion and retail platform and makes a conscious effort to tailor products to its customers. According to  Jacobs, “people are coming back more frequently, and they’re excited to see what’s in their sale tomorrow.” Personalized sales pushed the online retailer to be valued at roughly $1 billion just after five years of launching. Gilt’s personalization strategy has propelled the e-commerce company to enormous success.

Spotify

The online music platform Spotify is the leading music streaming host, despite competitors like iTunes and Google Play.

The introduction of personalized playlists has distinguished Spotify from other streaming sources.

One of these personalized playlist functions is “Discover Weekly.” Discover Weekly is a service which personalizes to each listener’s taste across a variety of genres. A personal playlist of 30 songs is curated and released each Monday based on listening habits. The music streaming service has also launched the “Release Radar” feature. Every Friday, the two-hour playlist is updated with newly released music from artists and bands a listener frequents. In addition, listeners who curate their playlists receive personalized suggestions on their playlists as well. The streaming service learns from personal preferences, songs skipped and replayed, and even looks at micro-genre music preferences to curate the best suggestions for each listener.

Spotify’s lead engineer and algorithm creator Edward Newett says, “we’re trying to show that Spotify understands users better than anyone else.” Within the first 10 months of launching, Discover Weekly saw 5 billion song plays. Senior product owner Matt Ogle says Discover Weekly’s success has “completely changed” the way Spotify interacts with consumers. The great success with user personalization has also increased consumer loyalty. Spotify boasts 40 million paid subscribers, compared to Apple Music’s 20 million paid subscribers.

Personalization is key to a brand’s success and transforms the customer experience. The focus on personalization allows many of these companies to grow as customers engage with brands more and more. With personalization on the rise, it will be interesting to see how industries implement various personalization tactics into their customers’ experiences.