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.

The Power of Trigger Marketing

marketing personalizationTrigger a Call to Action through Personalization!

As the old saying goes, timing is everything.  Trigger or Event-Based Marketing is the pulse behind a successful campaign because it hones in on actions your customer takes today. The result is highly targeted, hyper-personalized communications that delivers immediate results.

A trigger is the opportunity to talk to someone.  As a marketer, you’re reacting based on this trigger by cultivating an offer or message and presenting it in a timely manner.  Within that process, it’s important to keep frequency, value and presentation in mind.

What defines a trigger and takes it to that pivotal step of reacting? It can range from a welcome or thank you email when a new customer makes a purchase or acknowledging a customer’s absence.  Other common triggers include checkout abandonment, customer loyalty, seasonal, lifecycles, special events, and sales triggers.

Strategizing how you approach these triggers, cultivating an offer, and presenting it is no easy task. You’ve noticed Patty has left several items in her cart. There’s dozens of reasons why this could have happened. How you approach this is crucial. You want to be personal and helpful, however, you don’t want to cross the line of being overwhelming and “creepy.” For example, an e-mail will be pushed out to Patty a week after her cart has been abandoned with something along the lines of “We noticed you left several items in your cart and would like to offer you a 20% off coupon to use towards this purchase.”

As a marketer, recognizing the changing habits of consumers’ online shopping habits is important for staying ahead of the competition. Trigger marketing is a fantastic way to gain additional per customer revenue with little effort using SaaS software such as NectarOM’s suite.

 

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Marketing Personalization Then & Now

marketing evolutionLet’s Take A Trip Back In Time…

When you sit back and look at the technology today versus 15 or 20 years ago, the first thing that probably comes to mind is, “Times have changed.”  When you think about it, the advances in technology over the years is quite phenomenal.  The same holds true for marketing personalization, one-to-one marketing and hyper-personalized customer communications. At one time, acquiring customers, boosting revenue, growing a customer base and retaining customers required a much different and often tedious process.

Some of you may remember these “old school” methods.

1. The 3 Foot Rule – Although it was somewhat awkward, this method entailed sparking up a conversation about your business opportunity or product with anyone within a 3 foot radius.

2.  Prospecting Strangers – This is sometimes referred to as cold market recruiting and it involves a strategy of approaching strangers, creating curiosity, getting people’s interest and implementing a path to present your idea, opportunity and product. Talking with potential customers was also a way to gather information for a customer profile.

3.  Paper Ads – At one time, paper ads (ie magazines, newspapers, catalogs, etc) were heavily relied on for marketing campaigns as this method was the only way to reach thousands of potential customers.

4. Trade Shows – This gave business owners the opportunity to display products, introduce upcoming products, sell in mass quantities, acquire new customers and distribute paper ads in the form of fliers. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people flock to trade shows every year to “get the scoop,” take advantage of special offers, and see what’s coming in the year ahead.

5. Mass Mailers – Hands down, this had to be one of the most grueling tasks. The process of mass mailing was a complex strategy that was extremely time consuming. You had to collate a target audience, print out hundreds of fliers, address envelopes, seal and send. Then, wait. Unfortunately, this approach didn’t deliver results that were immediately visible.

6.  Door to Door – At one time, going door to door to introduce and sell a product was a sole means of getting the word out there about your product and would drive immediate results. You had the product in hand, a sales pitch and, if warranted, a demonstration. When all was said and done, you knew if you had a new customer or not.

7.  Word of Mouth – Regardless of the advancements in technology or marketing personalization, word of mouth will never phase out or lose it’s impact.  This is by far one of the most important elements in a business. Positive word of mouth is the modus operandi engine behind reaching and obtaining success.

Granted, most of these techniques have been modified and advancements made however, there is one thing that hasn’t…the need for marketing personalization.

Although some of these are still used and hold a great deal of importance, the marketing personalization road map has changed drastically.  The process has been intricately modified to cover every detail and behavior to substantiate big data. A great deal of time and work that has gone into developing solutions to connect customer data for marketing personalization, trigger marketing, personalized communications and data integration.

Old School has transpired into the here and now…

1.  One-to-One Marketing – Individualizing every bit of data and leveraging social data to establish and create one-to-one marketing messages across all digital channels. This technology allows the market to engage with a customer in ways they never could before.

2. Connecting Customer Data – Facilitating data integration based on browsing & purchase history, web & mobile click tracking, email, CRM, demographics, social, etc.

3. Creating a 360 Degree Customer Profile – In the process of connecting customer dots, and customer lifecycle management, a complete customer profile can be obtained so your company can deliver relevant content to each and every customer in real time.

4. Generating Hyper-Personalized Content – Your 360 degree customer profiles, along with segmenting your data, will determine the most accurate route to deploy content, products and information based on immediate customer needs.

5. Trigger Marketing – Executing a successful and profitable campaign is possible by honing in on triggers, identifying events and communicating in real time during these pre-planned points in time.

6. The Small Details – These details aren’t so small and play a big part in the road map to success. Listening to what your customer is doing and using adaptive algorithms gives you the ability to observe, test and optimize, key in on insight generation, evaluate and optimize your hyper-personalized content. This in turn will fine tune accuracy, value and appearance of marketing campaigns.

Modern technology has come a long way and it’s a far cry from hitting the pavement and go about your company or solely relying on paper ads to spread the word.  Old school methods are still applied today and the importance of these shouldn’t be ignored. One feeds off the other and the end result is a strong and loyal customer base with a steady stream of new customers.

 

 

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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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Announcing the Nectar Online Media Social Media Study

We are pleased to announce that, in partnership with the Social Media Club, Nectar has launched a first of its kind Social Media Study. We are aiming to highlight key best practices, opportunities, and the current state of social media investments for small, medium, and large businesses across a range of social platforms. While all companies utilize social media in different ways, it is often hard to read and understand the return on investment for such endeavors, something we hope to correct with this study.

We are now accepting responses at: https://www.research.net/s/Nectar_Social_Media_Study

Be sure to complete and share with your networks!

For any questions or clarifications, please write to Amrit Kirpalani at socialstudy@nectarom.com and mention the #socialmediastudy on Twitter.

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