One-to-one marketing Archives - Omnichannel Personalization SaaS Solution

28 Apr
2016

Outsmart the Smartphone: Expert Insights into Mobile Marketing

Marketers know mobile marketing is a critical component of any marketing strategy. Consumers cannot live without their smartphone and mobile device’s have become an integral part of consumer’s daily life.

Despite knowing the inherent impact of mobile, many brands are struggling to create and implement an effective mobile strategy. Yesterday’s American Marketing Association (AMA) meeting helped marketers better understand how to outsmart the smartphone and optimize their mobile marketing strategy.

Experts Scott Talbott from Verve Mobile, John Nosal from Advice Local, Abhi Vyas from Dex Media, and Bryon Morrison from NectarOM, sat down and shared how your brand can outsmart the smartphone.

Here are a few highlights from the panel discussion.

Consider the Omni Channel Experience

In addition to the 40 or so apps on your phone you also have the option to do email, send SMS, browse the web, post on social media, and receive push notifications. Smartphones have put 6 channels into one device along with more than 100 sensors, making it more important for marketers to think about the omni channel experience the device creates. Traditionally brands have siloed channels, creating a disconnected experience for the customer. Mobile is forcing marketers to break down silos and unify their efforts. Bryon Morrison suggested the consumer needs to be the center of the customer journey, not the channels. He continued, “If you understand the individual and their motivations then the mobile device is the most important marketing tool, because it packages all the channels in one device along with movement.

Target the Right Person at the Right Place and at the Right Time with the Right Message

From a location perspective mobile unlocks an interesting opportunity for marketers: location based marketing. Customers are starting to expect brands to tailor content to their location, and are more likely to convert when content is customized to their location. Brands leading with location by utilizing location based advertising or managing their local presence will be more likely to convert mobile customers. John Nosal believed that brands who focus on the mobile experience will win more customers.

“61% of smartphone users are more likely to buy from mobile sites and apps that customize information to their location.”

Get in the Game

When asked who is doing a great job in mobile, Morrison replied, “The ones in the game that are testing and failing fast.” He cited specific examples of early innovators that are now experiencing great success with mobile – eBay and their multi-app strategy were the first to post a billion in mobile sales; Walgreens gets 6x more revenue from customers that download their app; Walmart attained a 2% increase in conversions by shaving 4.3 seconds off their page download time.

Nosal responded that Starbucks was a leader in the mobile experience citing the ability to order and pay for coffee through their app. He also mentioned grocery stores like Tom Thumb (parent company, Albertsons) are leading the way, mentioning ability to build grocery lists through scanning barcodes with the app and use of push notifications to notify consumers of deals.

Know the Metrics that Matter

Don’t get caught up in the funnel metrics. Keep it simple and make sure that your KPIs link to mobile moments that matter like conversions and sales. Scott Talbott gave an example of automobile marketers getting too caught up in desktop web funnel metrics while missing out on the opportunity to reach prospects while they are physically standing on a dealership lot. Morrison also shared an example of a client that spent an immense amount of energy on app optimization, as opposed to growing their SMS channel which was delivering in-store mobile coupon conversions between 25%-45%.

Get to Know Your Customers

Brands know it is important for them to understand their customer and Abhi Vyas mentioned 81% of them think they are doing a good job. However, only 37% of customers think their favorite retailer understands them. The panel agreed this was a function of marketing departments, as opposed to mobile marketing. As an example, Morrison mentioned that marketing departments are often set up to launch and manage channels which is time consuming and laborious. That creates silos and makes cross channel marketing a challenge. If organizations focused on profiles and used a personalization platform then their ability to integrate a new channel would be much faster, easier and cost effective. That approach would also allow a brand to innovate faster which is currently being outpaced by consumer sophistication levels and expectations.

Talbott proposed one way companies could better market is by focusing on context, stating that “content is now secondary to context.” He also mentioned that mobile location matched against 1-to-1 knowledge of a customer is the best way a marketer can get to an understanding of intent.

If you are interested in learning how you can better deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right person let us know and schedule a demo to see the NectarSuite in action.

22 Apr
2016

The Business Imperative: Personalization

This Wednesday, the DFW-Retail Executives Association ended its season on a timely topic for retailers: Personalization. If you missed out on this panel or are one of the 77 percent of companies saying, “In 2016 we need to be doing personalization,” have no fear we have the panel highlights for you.

Cover Photo Amrit Speaking at REA Personalization Panel — *DFW REA Personalization Panel*

The panel consisted of three experts,

Jeff Rosenfeld-Vice President of Customer Insights & Analytics at The Neiman Marcus Group
Veeral Rathod- Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder at J. Hilburn Clothiers
And NectarOM’s very own Chief Executive Officer & Founder Amrit Kirpalani.

Panel Moderator Steve Dennis kicked off the panel discussion setting the stage for why personalization is quickly becoming a business imperative. Explaining that personalization is “an imperative because the battle has shifted from market share to share of attention- and it’s increasingly difficult to be the signal amidst the noise.”

The rest of the discussion focused on how personalization is changing their marketing efforts, what challenges they faced when launching their personalization efforts, how it is changing marketing, and finally discussed how other companies could successfully launch their own personalization efforts.

Here are a few of our favorite topics from the panel,

Test and Learn

Don’t start off trying to personalize every message coming from every channel. Amrit suggested that the clients with the most success started off small. Start off testing a few channels and messages at a time, learn what worked and then test some more.

Be Prepared to Think About Marketing Differently

Personalization fundamentally changes how marketing has been done for years. Instead of a one size fits all strategy, personalization shifts the focus to marketing on a one-to-one level. Jeff and Amrit agreed that culture change was one of the biggest challenges when companies started discussing personalization.

Not a One Size Fits All Solution.

Take the time to figure out how personalization fits into your company’s structure and into what your customers want. The Neiman Marcus Group and J. Hilburn Clothiers both used personalization in the retail space, however they each had a unique approach that fit their customer and business model’s needs.

Have the right partners in place

Not everyone can afford to have a team of data scientists creating custom algorithms. However, personalization is something that is becoming more realistic for companies of all shapes and sizes to start adding to their marketing efforts. All you need to do is find the right partner.

If you are interested in learning more about sending tailored messages to your customers in real-time across all your owned channels let us know and schedule a demo to see the NectarSuite in action.

26 Feb
2015

Marketing Personalization: A Long Term Investment

With 94% of marketers agreeing “personalization of the web experience is critical to current and future success,” we know that personalization is an investment that yields impressive results.

However, personalizing content can take more effort than producing generic, robotic marketing content. Getting to know a customer’s habits and preferences can take time, and analyzing customer behavior may require a few extra resources from the marketer’s toolbox. Nevertheless, personalization is an investment worth making, as a 1:1 shopping experience yields dramatic increases in ROI.

How is personalization a “long-term investment”?

Companies might need to wait several months before seeing a significant payoff in any type of long-term investment. The time it takes for personalization to pay off varies, based on the amount of interaction a shopper has with a company. For example, the pay off for a consumer that purchases purchases from a company a few times each year is longer than the payoff of a consumer who buys from that same company a few times each week. The brand will subsequently have more opportunity to gather data about the frequent purchaser based on his or her purchases and will be able to use the applicable personalization techniques over time to increase revenue on the customer. The more you know about your customer, the better the payoff.

Why does personalization yield results?

Customers prefer personalization. Tailored content enhances a shopping experience and makes a customer feel special. 1:1 marketing improves loyalty, strengthens business-consumer relationships, generates leads, and attracts shoppers. This all leads to an increase in sales and ROI. With all of these potential benefits, marketers should be more than willing to invest a little effort into personalizing content for shoppers.

How do you get that payoff?

Investing in personalization is a three-step process. Marketers should practice the following steps for maximum ROI.

Collect customer data: Data is the backbone for a personalized marketing campaign. Companies can collect customer data with a Data Management Platform (DMP), and make adjustments to marketing strategies based on what customer data tells them. Companies can retrieve data by offering exclusive customer membership accounts, promising an exchange of personal information like name, address, and birthday, for special offers and discounts. Companies can also collect data from customers’ past searches or purchases in-store or online. After compiling this information, marketers can then…
Analyze customer data: Customer data analysis shows whether a marketing strategy is working or failing. By evaluating specific metrics, marketers can figure out their customers’ preferences. Each interaction between a consumer and a business contributes to their 360-degree customer profile. The more interactions a consumer has with a business, the more complete their customer profile will be. Complete profiles allow businesses to adjust their marketing strategies and provide relevant content for customers. With a customer profile, marketers can proceed to…
Create content based off of analysis and customer profiles: Once a company figures out which marketing messages their customers prefer, marketers can begin drafting personalized, relevant content. This tailored content may include products similar to past purchases, or special offers based on birthdays or location. Data analysis is reflected in every aspect of customer content – from a personalized subject line of an automated email to a list of recommended products on a website.

The collection, analysis and content development process should be a never-ending cycle. If companies slack on collecting customer data, marketers could miss important changes in customer preferences. This could lead to an inaccurate data analysis. Mistakes in data analysis – or neglecting to analyze data at all – can taint marketing content. And failure to adjust marketing messages can lead to a drop in sales, as nearly 75% of consumers dislike irrelevant content. Interested in learning a little more about marketing personalization? Check out some of personalization basics here.

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.

18 Sep
2013

How Marketing Executives Use Big Data: All Types of Data Sets At the Right Time

I recently spoke with several high level marketing executives about the near-ubiquitous topic, BIG DATA. The executives included Paul Golden, ex-CMO of Samsung Mobile, Barry Judge (ex-CMO of Best Buy, current CMO of LivingSocial, and Brad Todd, (Principal at The Richards Group). Each of the executives with whom we spoke had used all types of data sets in different ways. Depending on the need of the business, they called on different types of data sets to achieve their purpose. Given their focus on marketing, the types of data sets tended to be tied to customers.

As a principal at The Richards Group since its inception, Brad Todd has seen a lot of changes in how advertising clients have used data. He recalls the proliferation of data from the introduction and use of loyalty cards at grocery stores. Although grocers captured vast amounts of information about their customers—what they bought, how often they purchased, how they paid—very little of that data was used to improve the customer relationship. The data was primarily used for managing inventory and shelf space. Arguably, having fully-stocked shelves does help the customer experience, but the primary use of the data was to improve the bottom line. Today, grocers and their CPG partners have begun to combine many types of data sets for more targeted marketing.

While CMO of Best Buy, Barry Judge and his team used different types of data sets–purchase history, clickstream analysis, email interactions, demographics and psychographics–to identify and deliver relevant product offerings to their customers. However, integrating newer analytics tools into legacy systems posed roadblocks. And incorporating data from the physical store, in order to have a truly holistic picture of each customer, was very difficult.

At Barry’s current company, Living Social, the relative newness of the company and the lack of a physical channel makes it easier to combine data. They have used customer information to prioritize offers according to each customer’s purchase history and click behavior, thus making the customer experience much more relevant.

Paul Golden, while he was CMO at Samsung Mobile, used big data to improve the brand preference score for Samsung’s mobile phones. Applying analytics to their big data allowed Paul and his team to identify key markets and determine the most relevant messages for those key markets.

Once you get past the hype and noise, big data can be very useful. The important thing is to clearly define your objectives and use the data to meet those objectives.

Want to learn more about how to connect different types of data sets? Click here.

And please feel free to leave any comments or questions below.

28 Aug
2013

Nectar: The Easiest One-to-One Marketing Suite. Period.

Is Nectar really the “easiest one-to-one marketing suite”? Yes! We have developed an integrated SaaS suite that makes the marketer’s job easy as pie.

And how have we done it? Our comprehensive software suite allows marketers to take disparate big data about thousands (or millions++) of customers and create individual 360-degree profiles in real time, then determine the BEST marketing message for each of those customers and get it to them, regardless of the device or channel they use. No technical expertise required!

Do you have lots of data in different places that you know has value, but you just can’t seem to get all the dots connected? nectarConnect will do that for you. We are your quick and easy Data Management Platform.

Do you have communications that you’re trying to personalize for your customers but just can’t make it relevant enough for them? Have you tried customer segmentation but aren’t getting the results you expected? nectarEssence will apply our proprietary algorithms to your data and generate one-to-one marketing messages for each of your customers IN MINUTES!

Do you struggle to get relevant messages to your customers across all the touchpoints you have? nectarEngage will distribute your one-to-one marketing messages to each of your customers, no matter how many you have, in real time, across email, mobile, website, and social. Really!

Listen to our Founder & CEO, Amrit Kirpalani, talk about Nectar: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMCPhluRuTg.

11 Jul
2013

Using Big Data to Micro-Target: Integrating Big Data for 1:1 Marketing

One of the things I love about my job at Nectar is sharing with our customers how we deliver value to their business by enabling them to micro-target messages to their customers. Recently, while reading McKinsey Quarterly articles on big data, I saw a couple of statements from McKinsey directors that really resonated with me, because it addresses the core of Nectar’s value proposition.

1) From David Court: “…the key is to focus on the big decisions for which if you had better data, if you had better predictive ability, if you had a better ability to optimize, you’d make more money.”
2) From Tim McGuire: “Analytics will define the difference between the losers and winners going forward.”

I believe that if you make your customers happy, they will be loyal to you, and loyalty generally translates into greater revenue (and less cost) for your company. How do you make your customers happy? By knowing them. Know how they interact with you, know what they buy from you, know what they like about you, know who they are. At an individual level. Of course, this is easier said than done. But with the right tools and data, it can be done.

When, where, what and how you communicate with your customer is one of those big decisions. Using the data you already have from your customer and combining it with other big data–online behavior, social, CRM, mobile, etc.–enables you to predict what that customer would want to hear from you. This predictive ability, in turn, allows you to optimize your relationship with that customer, which then helps you make more money. (I use the singular “customer” because that’s what a robust Digital Management Platform enables you to do: communicate with each of your customers as an individual, yet do it at scale.)

Technology exists today to bring all of your available big data together to build a foundation from which to make your big decisions. A company like Nectar can help you bring all this data together to enable you to build 360 degree profiles of each of your customers. But we don’t stop there; we then apply our proprietary algorithms to analyze your customer profiles to determine the most relevant communications to deliver to each customer–we call this hyper-personalization. To complete the circle, we then help you distribute consistent hyper-personalized messages across every digital channel your customer uses.

We like our perch at the intersection of big data, analytics and hyper-personalization because when we bring each of these tools to bear for our customers, big decisions not only become easy but they also make you money.

Want to learn more? Please email contact@nectarom.com for more information.

26 Jun
2013

Mobile Personalization: Boost Mobile Revenues with Relevance

Mobile commerce is big. And getting bigger. It has only been six years since Apple introduced the iPhone, arguably the first shopping-friendly smartphone–though even that didn’t happen with the first generation. And today we are spending billions of dollars shopping and buying on our phones. Next up: Mobile Personalization!

“The runaway hit for retail this year will be mobile commerce. The best way to leave money on the table is not to have a commerce-enabled mobile site and application.”
-Mobile Commerce Outlook 2013

“Over the next five years, total mobile sales are expected to grow 33% annually to $31 billion [from $8 billion today], making up 9% of online sales in 2017.”
-Forrester Research

According to BI Intelligence, by January 2013, 29% of mobile users had made a purchase with their phones. According to Internet Retailer, Walmart estimated that 40% of all visits to their internet shopping site in December 2012 were from a mobile device. And this is happening despite the small screens and the often difficult-to-navigate mobile sites that exist today. Imagine what mobile personalization can do for this small screen.

There are a few retailers who are doing mobile commerce right. Amazon leads in this area. They not only save all your information and sync it across your digital devices, they also make checking out a breeze. And on top of that, they offer mobile personalization for your shopping experience, which makes for a very easy and pleasant exchange; you almost WANT to give Amazon your money.

But how about retailers who don’t have the time (and money) already invested in building an e-commerce (and m-commerce) powerhouse? How do these retailers take a bite of the growing mobile pie?

First and foremost, you have to optimize your website for mobile. Without a mobile-optimized website, no one will shop on your site using their smartphone. Everything else is secondary.

But let’s say you have a mobile-optimized website. You even have an app for iOs and/or Android. How can you rise above all the noise of all the other retailers trying to get the consumer’s attention? The most effective (and least disruptive) way to do this is mobile personalization: making your customer’s mobile experience as relevant as possible for him or her.

Imagine shopping on that tiny screen and you are immediately shown products that are relevant for YOU. You don’t have to try to fat-finger your way through several incorrect screens to get to the item you want. I would certainly be less frustrated and more likely to purchase if I didn’t have to spend my valuable time repeating steps just to try to give a company my money. This is what mobile personalization gives you.

Technology exists today to bring all the data you have together to paint a picture of each of your customers. Powerful algorithms are applied to these customer pictures to determine the most relevant products, offers or messages for each of them. Then if you have a mobile-optimized site, it’s just a matter of displaying the most relevant content in front of each customer. And before you know it, mobile personalization has helped you take a bite out of that mobile pie.

Nectar Online Media

can help you integrate your data (and even gather some), personalize your content and deliver that content for display on your mobile site. Find out more!

04 Apr
2013

Mad Hyper-Personalization: The Evolution to 1:1 Marketing

Don Draper of Mad Men works on Madison Avenue (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In honor of the Mad Men Season 6 premier this weekend, we’d like to take this moment to take a walk down Marketing Memory Lane, From mass marketing to demographic segmentation to customer segmentation to personalization. And now with Nectar, hyper-personalization.

Before the era now inextricably linked with Don Draper, all consumers received the same products, the same messages and the same ads, in the same medium(s). As Henry Ford once famously said, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”

Then came those famous Ad Men (and yes, they were mostly men) of Madison Avenue. They realized that men and women actually hear, read and remember things differently. So these Mad Men placed “male-oriented” products, like aftershave, in sports magazines or the sports section of the newspaper. Products “for women” were advertised on TV during the middle of the day, thus the term “soap” opera, a tip of the hat to sponsor Procter & Gamble and their detergents. This demographic segmentation became more and more specific as time passed, differentiating marketing for marrieds vs singles, high income vs low, urban vs suburban, black vs white, and so on.

As companies began to gather more and more data on their customers and computers became increasingly powerful, smart businesses realized there was an even better way to market. Customers could be grouped into similar segments and marketed to according to their similarities. After all, not all women are created equal. Some of us like brand names. Some of us refuse to buy anything without a coupon. And some of us try to shop as infrequently as possible–hard to believe, but we exist! The hypothesis was that If brands could speak to each segment in a way that resonated with that segment, customers would buy more. And they did! Segmentation not only improved customer loyalty, it also reduced the cost of doing business.

With the advent of the internet and the wealth of data it provides, targeting has become increasingly defined. Savvy companies track not only customer purchases, but what customers are looking at when they are on the brand’s site. Some even combine internal digital data with bricks & mortar data. All this data allows businesses to relate to their customers more effectively. This 0ersonalization is the precursor to hyper-personalization.

But what if a brand could speak to a customer on an individual level, aka hyper-personalization? That’s what Nectar’s proprietary software allows brands to do! By combining all digital data available (purchases, online and email click behavior, CRM data, mobile, and so on) with social information, companies can now market to their customers in a 1:1 manner, yet do it at scale.

Today, we may go to the office in blue jeans rather than dapper suits, we may no longer be able to smoke wherever we please, we may not be able to have the 3-martini lunch anymore, but we can speak to our customers in a way that’s much more relevant for them: hyper-personalization. Now, please excuse me, so I can go spend an hour with Don Draper. Cheers!