marketing personalization Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Omnichannel Personalization SaaS Solution

29 Dec
2014

The Top 5 Personalized Marketing Efforts

In a market that places increasingly more importance on creating a customer-centric experience, today’s top marketers must utilize personalized, 1:1 marketing strategies to drive sales and stay competitive with other companies. However, some personalized marketing efforts are more effective than others. While we have talked about some great omnichannel marketing winners, we’ll be focusing on personalized marketing winners. We’ve determined five brands that offer some of the best personalized marketing campaigns.

Amazon

Amazon incorporates personalization into marketing automation emails, as well as on their website. Last September, I experienced Amazon’s marketing personalization first-hand, when I received three emails from the company within the week following a purchase of textbooks.

The first email I received was an order confirmation email. The email confirmed that my payment had gone through, that my order had been made, and – most importantly – included a thank you for shopping with Amazon. The second email I received confirmed that my order had been shipped and, once again, thanked me for my purchase. The final email I received was signed from TextbooksTexas, but was sent through Amazon. I received confirmation that my order had been delivered, a request for review, and yet another thank you.

While each of these emails contain different content, they all thank the customer for making a purchase. Incorporating a simple “thank you” can turn a standard confirmation email into an intimate shopping experience, making the customer feel appreciated. Showing gratitude makes the customer feel valued, which increases the likelihood for loyalty and future purchases.

In addition to emails, Amazon also implements personalized marketing when customers visit their sites. A widget at the bottom of their home page lists recently viewed and recommended items for past customers, based on previous purchases. Because my past purchases had been textbooks for journalism and human rights classes, my widget was filled of different books of the same nature.

Anthropologie

Anthropologie has one of the best personalized marketing strategies for their customers’ birthdays. The retailer sends several emails to consumers over the course of their birthday month. At the beginning of the month, Anthropologie sends an email inviting the birthday guy or gal to a birthday soiree at the nearest store, complete with appetizers, personal styling, and discounts. Anthro also sends multiple emails throughout the month with special codes for discounts to birthday customers.

People like to celebrate their birthdays with family, friends, and loved ones. As Anthropologie sends customers birthday celebration emails, the retailer nonchalantly categorizes itself into the same category as those friends and loved ones. This simple personalization technique gives Anthropologie another dimension: a company that wants to maintain a close relationship – not just another sale.

Hostelworld.com

Hostelworld.com is the world’s number one hostel booking website – an accomplishment that can be explained by their personalized marketing strategy.

After one stays in a hostel booked through Hostelworld, he or she receives an email requesting a review about their stay. If, after a few days, the traveler still has not reviewed their stay, Hostelworld sends out a friendly reminder email. In big bold letters at the top of the email, Hostelworld tells the user, “We value your opinion.” Hostelworld also sends an email to its users six months following their last use of the site. This email is a reminder to travelers that Hostelworld is still around, and highly values their business.

In both of these emails, Hostelworld emphasizes the high value they place on each of their users. And, when a customer feels valued, they are likely to become repeat users.

Spotify

Similar to Amazon, Spotify incorporates personalized marketing through emails and their actual site in order to generate and maintain subscriptions.

Spotify sends out several emails each month with recommendations for music to the subscriber. These recommendations are based off of music that the user has previously listened to on Spotify. In addition, users have the option to discover new music recommended by Spotify on the Spotify platform. These recommendations, again, are based off of music the listener has listened to in the past.

ASOS

The retailer is another company that has utilized personalization through marketing automated emails to drive sales. Interested in bringing back past customers who have not visited their online store in a while, the company sends out an email with a special promo code for discounts on items on the site. Asos also sends out abandoned shopping cart emails to customers who have left the site without purchasing items they placed in their cart. As online studies show that 60% of online shoppers return to the site to make purchases after receiving an abandoned shopping cart email, Asos’s marketing automation techniques are a strategic implementation.

In both types of emails, the importance Asos places on keeping tabs on past customers is very clear. Forbes explains the importance of customer retention through statistics, like Gartner Group’s findings that 80% of a company’s future revenue will come from 20% of existing customers.

Wrapping it up

From using personalization to celebrate birthdays, to keeping customers engaged, companies utilize various 1:1 marketing techniques to generate sales. And, as data usage and omni-channel develop further, we can’t wait to see what personalized marketing campaigns await in 2015!

11 Dec
2014

A Recap of Dallas Digital Summit 2014

This past Tuesday and Wednesday, a few of us from NectarOM took a break from our traditional office duties and attended this year’s Dallas Digital Summit.

Dallas Digital Summit is the largest, premier digital strategies forum in the Dallas area. Over forty of today’s leaders in digital fields led roundtable discussions and workshops, discussing up-and-coming strategies, trends and practices in today’s digital age. These speakers aimed to educate and promote forward thinking and thought leadership pertaining to digital business and marketing.

What did we do at DDS?

Marketing Heroes Twitter Contest. Contestants sent us a tweet about their marketing hero for the chance to win an Apple TV for them and their hero. Over X people entered the contest throughout the conference. At the end of the conference we announced our randomly selected winner: Brandon H. from . Brandon said his marketing hero is Seth Dotterer, VP of Marketing at Conductor, after Dotterer’s presentation about blending branding and marketing in SEO.

Marketingpersonalization.com. We used DDS as an opportunity to announce the launch of our new publication, marketingpersonalization.com. Marketingpersonalization.com is the premier resource for marketers to stay informed on the fast-changing topic of marketing personalization. Besides publicizing, we also recruited a few writers to contribute posts to the site.

Video Interviews. We also had the amazing opportunity to conduct private interviews with a few DDS speakers, regarding trends and forecasts for marketing and data usage. Some of our interviewees include Arnie Kuenn, CEO of Vertical Measures; Robert Richardson, Editorial Director for TechTarget Security Media Group; Jeff Sheehan, President of Sheehan Marketing Strategies; and Steve Hammer, President of RankHammer. Stay tuned for footage from our interviews, which we will post on marketingpersonalization.com next week!

04 Dec
2014

Top Three Fears About Marketing Personalization

A recent survey of online shoppers shows that consumers are more open to marketing personalization strategies than ever before. 79% of U.S. consumers expect personalization from brands, and over 50% expect e-commerce sites to remember past purchases. With these expectations and demands from the public, why hasn’t every company utilizing personalized marketing?

We’ve found that unwillingness to incorporate personalization comes down to one factor: Fear.

Fear of change
As marketing personalization is a relatively new concept, companies that are doing well without utilizing this marketing strategy may not want to make changes.

An article by Forbes explains why companies hesitate when making big changes.

Old habits act as a resistant towards change. These habits can be powerful and hard to break, pulling us away from new, alternative ideas. The brain is also responsible for resistance to change. One’s prefrontal cortex must work harder when experimenting with new ideas. With this in mind, companies may be reluctant toward embracing the new concept of personalization.

However, while embracing change may be difficult, doing so is imperative for a company that hopes to stay successful. Those who fail to utilize new approaches risk becoming outdated by competitors who conform to the fresh marketing tactics the public wants.

Fear of turning off customers
Personalized marketing is designed to give customers a 1:1 experience with products that are relevant and tailor-made for each individual. So why would some customers be turned off by this approach?

The creepiness factor.

Consider this blunder Target made a couple years ago. The company sent coupons for baby items to a teenage girl. Using the girl’s Guest ID number, name and historical buying data, Target had determined the girl was pregnant…however, the baby item coupons arrived in the mail before the girl had told her father. As chaos ensued, Target was met with skepticism. Critics called the company’s personalization practices “creepy” and “eerie.”

Situations like this give personalized marketing bad stigma. However, if the right precautions are taken, personalized marketing will not turn away customers.

Consider this: When a consumer is aware that their information is being tracked, they may be more comfortable sharing their data. Target had come across as invasive because neither the girl nor her family was aware that Target had been tracking her purchases and personal information.

Contrast this situation with a strategy employed by Nordstrom. Nordstrom uses marketing personalization by showing products similar to ones a customer has previously viewed. Because Nordstrom is so open about their use of personalization and data tracking, people are not fazed by it.

Nordstrom's take on marketing personalization — Nordstrom’s take on marketing personalization

Rewards in exchange for information can help customers feel at ease with the creepiness factor. Reward customers for sharing their email information with special offers each month exclusively through email. Similarly, asking a customer for his or her date of birth can go from creepy to personal with the promise of a birthday card and special gift delivered during their special month.

While personalized marketing can admittedly come across as creepy, companies aware of the boundary between personal and invasive should not fear the concept of a personalized marketing campaign.

Fear of the payoff
If your company is spending money on personalizing an experience, will it pay off in the future? Or is your company wasting time, money and other resources on something that could end up costing more than its worth?

How can you be sure you’ll reach your desired return on investment?

Based on these statistics, we are confident that personalized marketing will generate positive results for companies. Personalization makes customers feel special, generates a higher response rate, strengthens loyalty, and increases customer lifetime value. Personalized emails in particular are able to generate 18 times more revenue, compared to generalized emails. 78% of CMOs believe that custom content is the future of marketing.

With so many positive effects from personalization, it’s difficult to imagine an unsatisfactory ROI after implementation. These stats should qualm any uneasiness about payoffs a company may have.

Key Takeaways:
While changing adding a personalization aspect to marketing campaigns may seem like a big leap of faith, doing so is more of a help than hinderance to companies. However, if used correctly, personalization gives your company the edge it needs to stay competitive, retain customers, and increase ROI. Need a few tips for getting started with personalizing your marketing strategies? We have determined four steps to implementing marketing personalization.

10 Oct
2014

How to Audit Your Marketing Personalization Efforts

Climbing the personalization mountain ain’t easy. How can an audit help?

You’ll face set backs, run into frustrating data issues, and find yourself confused as to why things just won’t work. With marketers juggling so many tasks these days, most simply don’t have time to take a deep breath and really untangle their technology stacks, execution points, and channels to pinpoint where marketing personalization priorities should lie.

For our clients that want to quickly pursue a path to marketing personalization, the first thing we tackle is a comprehensive audit of their customer experience through website, contact center, mobile app, and even brick & mortar to get a feel of their current personalization capabilities. The goal is to let marketers focus on what they do best while we do the analysis necessary to make marketing heroes.

Our audit allows our partners to:

Have a calculated outside perspective on current customer experience
Benchmark their performance against expected internal performance measures
Prioritize low effort, high return personalization efforts
Tackle personalization as a single entity vs. separate silos

If you’re currently personalizing, you can start doing some preliminary audits on current marketing personalization efforts by taking a step-by-step approach.

Step 1: Understand the big picture

You may be working specifically on email marketing, or managing social media, but getting a better feel of the overall picture will set the framework on your audit. It may take an email or some digging, but knowing where resources are spent, and understanding some metrics across different marketing channels will help you build a better foundation (both for your understanding of the marketing role at your company and also for this audit).

Step 2: Connect the dots

What systems integrate? How do they integrate? Are databases linked so personalization flows? You don’t necessarily need to ask an IT wizard or access systems do this. Simply take the path of a customer and engage with your brand. Sign up for your newsletter and check for personalized touches, go onto the website and see if offers change based on your behavior, and even visit a brick & mortar store to see if the cashier recognizes your loyalty sign up. Your job is to find out what connects, what doesn’t, and what level of personalization currently exists.

Step 3: Pinpoint areas in need of improvement

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, it isn’t easy to benchmark given the few companies that have attained high level personalization performance. A much less intensive method of benchmarking is to simply do a comparison side-by-side with a market leader(s). Companies like Amazon are also great to use as a standard for personalization. You can assess your competitors by taking the customer path method in step 2 and appropriating it for the other companies.

Takeaways?

It takes time to do a marketing personalization audit, but it will save you time and effort when it comes time to decide on what needs help and where you should focus your time for the next year.

If interested, we’re offering a complimentary marketing personalization audit for qualified companies.

Marketers who sign up will be presented the very same audit report we give to our partners, and even a short consultation session on specific points in the report. Our goal is to make you a hero – someone who can proudly proclaim that they’re well on their way to conquering the marketing personalization challenge.

03 Sep
2014

5 Tips for Improving E-mail Metrics Using Marketing Personalization

Email metrics are increasingly becoming an essential part of a company’s marketing plan. Marketers are constantly under pressure to excel at various key performance indicators. These 5 tips will give you a better understanding of how to start improving and measuring important email metrics using marketing personalization ad various other tactics.

1) To Increase Open Rate, Personalize the message

Personalizing email message content results in an average open rate of 13.2% versus 9.8% with no content personalization. It’s clear that personalizing the content in the message is instrumental in increasing open rates. Personalizing a message may include adding relevant items based on the individual’s past browsing behavior, cart additions, or more sophisticated omnichannel data analysis.

However, it’s interesting to note that personalizing both the subject line and content message results in a much lower open rate of 5.3%, according to the same study. Conducting your own study with your customer base may give you a better understanding of how your consumers react to different personalization tactics.

Fabletics.com works on a subscription model, where you receive an outfit every month for $49.95. If you don’t wish to purchase an outfit that month, you must login and opt out within the first 5 days of the month. Your first outfit is $25 which is a steal for an outfit compared to the price of other athletic brand names. When you first sign up you are prompted to create a Lifestyle Profile Quiz, which generates a personalized profile regarding your likes/dislikes, what kind of activities you are involved in, and the type of clothing you prefer. Consumers sign up for the website and get an email on the first of every month, exclaiming “Your Personalized Picks Have Arrived”. This model is an example of how personalization is integrated within both email and the website experience where personalized outfit picks are the largest selling point.

2) To Decrease Bounce Rate, Use Double Opt-in Signup

A company’s reputation is perhaps its most valuable asset, not just in the physical world, but in the digital world as well. It’s important to be well aware of your bounce rates because these numbers directly affect how an ISP sees the emails that are coming to your consumers’ inboxes.

A soft bounce means there is a temporary problem associated with the email address, such as an automatic vacation message responder or full mailbox message.

A hard bounce means there is a permanent reason why the email cannot be delivered because the email address is invalid or closed. Removing hard bounces is important in maintaining your reputation as a company because ISPs will use these bounce rates to place your emails in the “Spam” category.

Using double opt-in can combat increasing bounce rates. Double opt-in means that an email address is validated a second time through a confirmation email which will contain an activation link.

Additionally, letting members personalize their preferences on what types of emails they wish to receive and making the unsubscribe process simple will also ensure satisfactory bounce rates.

3) To Increase Open and Click Through Rates, Time of Day Matters

Some claim that deciding when to send your email is just as important as what goes in your email.

There is a wide variety of conflicting information regarding what time you should send your emails. Open rates typically peak at 8am and emails are more likely to be opened during normal business hours, specifically from 8am to 5pm.

Additionally, sending emails on either Tuesdays or Wednesdays are beneficial in increasing your open rates. Weekend email sends generally have lower open rates and click through rates as well, although this could vary for certain retailers, such as those who send out weekly sale emails every Sunday.

4) To Increase Open Rates, Keep Your Subject Line Relatively Short and Sweet

When crafting subject lines, keep in mind short and sweet is the way to go. Aim for a range of 4-16 character limits, as this range has shown to have higher open rates. Various studies suggest that subject lines with 4-15 characters have slightly higher open rates compared to emails with longer subject lines.

Since the goal of the subject line is to entice an open, it’s important to explain the benefit from the get-go by explicitly stating it in the subject line in order to grab the user’s attention.

Below are some examples of subject lines received in my personal inbox within the last two weeks that were enticing enough for me to open because they were either very applicable to me (just bought a Kindle PaperWhite and was therefore browsing books on Amazon) or piqued my interest because of the potential discount or promotion I could get (J. Crew lured me in with the $50 off promotion and Travel Zoo knew I would love travel sales from my city).

You There? Here’s $50…
J. Crew

Up to 85% Off More Than 1,000 Kindle Books | and more
Amazon

NEWSFLASH: Virgin America Launches 3-Day Sale from Dallas
TravelZoo

5) To Increase Click Through Rate, Include Multiple Calls of Action within Email

Have you heard of “above the fold”? Essentially, you have about 2 inches of space to really catch your customer’s eye before he/she decides to hit the back button and browse the other 100 promotional emails within the inbox over the weekend. Because this is valuable real estate, you will want to make it as appealing as possible by announcing what the benefit of the email is to the user. Your e-mail header, the header that contains your company logo, shouldn’t take up too much space because you will want to allow room for both the benefit and call of action.

I counted 24 different areas within the main area of the email below where one can click to go through to the website. The email offers plenty of opportunities for clicks which makes the experience very user friendly. If the consumer is not particularly interested in the clearance items, but has been wanting to get a new cross-over bag, she can click on the BAGS tab which is reflective of Francesca’s website.

The image above the fold is eye catching and it’s clear that the benefit of the email is buy one get one 50% off.

19 Aug
2014

4 Steps to Implementing Marketing Personalization at Your Company

If you are at all interested in implementing marketing personalization at your company, follow this quick 4 step guide.

1. Determine whether or not you really need it right now.

How do you know when you’re ready to start personalizing your messages? First, decide what state your company may be in. Are you a growing consumer facing business that has reached a plateau in revenue and is looking for a new marketing/growth strategy? Or maybe you’re in a slow moving industry and you want to jump ahead of your competitors. Perhaps there are more pressing issues that must be solved first, such as branding or strategy.

What most consumer facing companies have realized is that customers are almost expecting some kind of personalization during their digital experience. Recent studies have shown that 71% of consumers would be more likely to purchase from a brand if a company’s emails were tailored to their customers’ likes and preferences (source).

Marketing personalization could be your answer.

2. Do your research

At this point, you’re still in the preliminary stages of determining whether or not personalization is a right fit for your company. It’s important to find out what you’re really looking for in a marketing personalization suite. Do you need a powerful e-mail, customer relationship management, and personalization tool? Or do you have an email deployment platform already and are looking to supplement your email service provider with marketing personalization?

If you’re still new to the world of personalization, we cover the basics of marketing personalization in our mass customization article. Additionally, here are some quick data stats on digital marketing to kick start your research.

3. Build a Business Case

Convince your boss you will need personalization by building a business case. Your business case must have buy-in from the CMO and the CFO. Make this happen by demonstrating the power of personalization as not only a customer experience management capability, but also a strategic investment to grow profitability by increasing revenue and decreasing costs with a strong ROI.

In building your business case, you can use metrics such as open rate, click through rate, and shopping cart basket items to portray a potential increase using personalization. Really think through how personalization can be beneficial for your organization. If you’re an apparel retailer who is constantly seeing shopping card abandonment, you may want to consider implementing card abandonment emails along with personalization such as “Based on your shopping cart items, we recommend:”

nectarOM founder and CEO Amrit Kirpalani explains how hyperpersonalizing will garner gratitude from not only your CFO but your customers as well in this Direct Marketing News article.

4. Choose a vendor

Personalization is relatively new in the digital marketing space, which means the companies that offer the technology are relatively young as well. Many companies will claim to have some degree of omni-channel personalization, but it’s very difficult to really evaluate a product without being extremely diligent in your research and taking a deep dive into each solution. It is very common for companies to offer pilots and short test periods before implementation, so take your time before signing the dotted line.

23 Jan
2014

Achieving Conversion with Website Personalization

Delivering a hyper-personalized email marketing campaign isn’t the only avenue to delivering relevant content and offers to each and every customer. Website personalization gives customers access to a personalized onsite experience.

What’s the difference between a personalized and non-personalized website?

Non-Personalized – The content presented is the same for all customers and lacks personalization. Finding desired products and content relies on search and navigation. The customer must first select an item before it’s presented to them.

Personalized – The content presented is controlled, targeted and based on your big data. When a customer clicks through, targeted products and offers will be displayed based on their browsing history, purchases made, website behavior, lifestyle, etc.

As a marketer you want every customer to experience something personal and relevant. In doing so, you need to act on big data insights to segment and deliver personalized experiences in real time. This, in turn, drives higher conversions and revenue.

How can you turn non-personalized into personalized?

Personalized Greeting – When a customer clicks through, have a personalized greeting such as, “Welcome back, Mrs. Jones.”

Personalized Options – This includes the option to view account information, edit and update profile, add a profile picture and once click features that pulls in targeted information.

Visible Browsing History – Let’s say Mrs. Jones was shopping for workout apparel and had viewed a dozen items. Before making a purchase she was interrupted and had to step away for a few hours. When she returns and clicks through, a visible browsing history would pull in the items she’s previously viewed. This prevents Mrs. Jones from having to re-search the items.

Personalized Content – When a customer clicks through, it’s important to have a hyper-personalized landing page based on preferences, browsing & purchase history, profile etc. Mrs. Jones has browsed and purchased workout apparel and home office solutions. The landing page, or a portion of the content, should address her needs and preferences.

16 Oct
2013

Marketing Personalization Then & Now

Let’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.

09 Oct
2013

Why Trigger Marketing Matters

As 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.

07 Oct
2013

How Amazon Uses Marketing Personalization

Amazon…You’re Doing It Right

Amazon excels in the area of marketing personalization. They’ve mastered the art of creating a hyper personalized shopping experience for their customers saving them both time and money. With the data to back it up, they’ve created 360 degree customer profiles. This allows Amazon to connect the customer dots and divide their customers into discerning groups to prevent generic mass emailing. Personalized marketing emails are created based on segmented data that includes social data, website activity, browsing history, areas of interest, past purchase history, etc.

How can Amazon attribute marketing personalization to their success?

1. Paying attention to big data. Think about a moment when you’ve had to purchase a gift for someone. Naturally, you put some thought into this. During that thought process, you gather up relevant information about this person. Who is this person? What do they like? What do they enjoy doing? What are their interests? With that 360 degree view, you’re able to come up with a few gift ideas suitable for that one person. The same concept applies to marketing personalization and how Amazon uses that to target customers. They integrate social data, customer purchases, browsing history, customer lifecycles, and rich customer profiles to create hyper-personalized communications. Within these communications are offers, products and content that targets each individual customer’s needs and interests.

2. Hyper-Personalized communications at just the right time. Once this information is gathered, Amazon uses it to disperse real time communications to their customers that is personable, friendly, and addresses their needs. Let’s say Jill W. got a new puppy 2 weeks ago. Amazon determined this through gathering social information, traditional personaization data, and browsing history. By combining all of this information via marketing personalization, Amazon sends Jill an email with a variety of offers and products that she may need like puppy pads, puppy food, dog beds and pet toys. When Jill purchases a couple of these items, another real time email is sent suggesting other items that may interest her based on recent purchases.

3. Recognizing the little extras drive big results. Through marketing personalization and big data, Amazon targets their customers by throwing in a few of those “little extras.” A few days before the first of the month, Amazon sent Jill and email with a slew of October deals and coupons for puppy supplies. Another little extra is the email they sent Jill letting her know Criminal Minds: Season 8 was now available for purchase. Over the past couple of years she had purchased seasons 1-7. Amazon has also determined that Jill is a bargain shopper and will send her emails with deep discounts on products based on her browsing and purchase history. These little extras make a big different and can boost your revenue and sales.

Can your company acquire the same marketing personalization as Amazon? The answer is yes! With Nectar Software Products, you can increase revenue and customer engagement by connecting customer dots and creating a thorough 360 degree customer profiles. Unlock marketing personalization and big data’s full potential by connecting customer data, gaining social insights, hyper-personalizing communications and increasing social media ROI. You can this this quickly and cost-effectively.

Check out Nectar Solutions to find out how!