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.

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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Small Details In Marketing Personalization Makes A Big Difference

marketing personalizationThe Little Things Are A Big Deal

There’s a lot to do in the great big world of marketing personalization. Your goal is to acquire customers, drive traffic to your site, boost revenue and retain your pool of customers. Establishing a 360 degree customer profile requires a great deal of effort. This information is obtained through various sources including purchase history & habits, CRM, customer profiles, email, mobile, social, browsing history, etc. Once that is established, you have to connect the customer dots from customer databases and third parties.

From there, hyper-personalized communications are deployed via trigger marketing in real time to deliver the right information, products, offers and content at just the right time. This involves finding the trigger, creating the right offer and delivering a timely execution. All in all, having the most efficient and accurate road map will determine your success and aspired outcome.

When you look at a map, you’ll see more than the thick lined interstate highways. There’s a collaboration of main roads and side roads. When trying to get from point A to point B, it’s habit to look at the quickest route…interstate highways. However, this doesn’t take you to your final destination. Close, yes, but not quite there. You need the main roads and side roads to successfully reach your destination.

The same holds true for marketing personalization. There’s a great deal of dynamic sources of retaining big data and generating real time, hyper-personalized content and communications.  As much as it may appear that you’ve gone from point A to point b successfully, you’re not there…yet. Now you need to string together the smaller roads that will get you there.  In the world of marketing personalization, that means paying attention to the little things.  Those little things can make a big difference.

The small details aren’t so small when you look at the big picture…

1.  Timing – We all know, with most things, timing is everything. Within your big data, you’ve determined Mrs. Smith’s comprehensive 360 customer profile. She’s received timely offers, content and products based on her needs, triggers, habits, etc. Are you ready to execute a campaign? No. Now you need to take the word “time” in its literal sense.  When are you sending these emails to Mrs. Smith? Have you studied her patterns to hone in on when Mrs. Smith reads her emails? This often overlooked detail is of key importance. You can have the most complete, real time communications, but if Mrs. Smith reads her emails at 9 a.m. and you’re executing a marketing campaign at 7 p.m. you’ve missed her.

2. Events – By using adaptive algorithms, you can listen to what a customer is doing. You can observe behaviors, social, CRM, purchases, announcements and lifecycles to evaluate and optimize the hyper-personalized content. Did Mrs. Smith accept a new job that requires relocating to another city? Sending a congratulatory note might seem like the nice thing to do however, this is information you need to weigh carefully.  Instead, find a meaningful and relevant way to use this information to influence some recommendations.

3. Customer engagement – You’ll be aware of when a customer appears to have “fallen off the face of the earth.” They may appear to be in a state of dormancy. Your first reaction may be to send a slew of “We’ve Missed You” or “We’ve Noticed You Haven’t Shopped In Awhile” emails with offers and products to nudge them. You may even go so far as to send an exclusive coupon to lure them back. Overloading can often backfire and potentially turn a customer away for good. This is a good time to study those algorithms and key in on those events. Mrs. Smith is moving because of a new job. There’s a lot to do!  She’s packing, making arrangements, a long commute, starting a new job, etc. Now is the time to plan a careful marketing campaign to reestablish her engagement.

Nectar’s suite of products can work together to connect big data, develop a complete picture and deliver the most relevant and individualized communications.  

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