It’s difficult to think of a more exciting time in marketing. New technology is providing companies with amazing avenues to directly interact with customers, and delivers multiple touchpoints across a vast array of channels and devices.
This has created an exponential amount of instantly accessible customer information. With so many organizations placing an emphasis on big data, it’s incredible that companies still create and send non-personalized online marketing campaigns.
It’s time for – Hey Marketer, Hi Valued Customer, Hello, insert generic greeting here, or the ever-cringeworthy, Dear Friend – to be deleted. If they were a valued customer or ‘friend’ you’d address them by name.
When a potential customer has taken the time to fill out an online form and provided, at the bare minimum, their name and an authentic email address, they’re obviously interested in receiving communication from you. The very least you can do is personalize it.
There’s an insurmountable number of surveys, whitepapers, research papers and infographics available that all basically say the same thing; personalization equates to higher engagement, enhanced customer relationships and measurable growth in both sales and brand loyalty.
Divide and conquer
Segmentation is perhaps the most important element of marketing personalization. The key is not so much the amount of data you acquire, but what you do with it. The most successful businesses are the ones that clearly segment their customers.
The reason it’s the critical first step is to ensure you’re sending relevant information on products or solutions to the right person to help them overcome business challenges. Otherwise it’s possible for personalization to lose all credibility. Sending personalized yet irrelevant content says you may know your customer’s name, but you don’t know what they need.
Making an impressive impression
Through anywhere, anytime connectivity, people are consuming vast amounts of content. While much of this is attributed to entertainment or social media interaction, they’re also researching companies, products and services online long before contacting a sales person or making a purchase.
With dynamic response software, personalization is quickly gaining popularity in B2B marketing. Mainly as it can go beyond just the recipient’s first name in a subject line or email greeting. You can also include their company name in the text of your email message and add the recipient name to the CTA button to enhance your click-through rate.
When a potential customer interacts with the email and goes to the associated micro-site, this too can be personalized with the site visitor’s company name.
Don’t talk at me, converse with me
Personalization goes beyond sales conversions. While this is ultimately the end goal, it’s more about engaging in two-way conversation, establishing a long-term relationship and building a rapport with customers.
And while personalization is made possible through marketing automation platforms, there are still humans behind the tech. People creating content for the people receiving it.
Don’t look at personalization from a marketers’ perspective, but rather assess it as a customer. What would you expect from not just your favorite brands you purchase regularly, but also from a new brand? Ask yourself, what would be overly familiar or too aggressively sales focused?
How customers are choosing to interact with brands has changed significantly. As such, expectations have increased. This has created challenges for some marketers, while others are putting the wealth of customer data available today to good use.
The invaluable data generated from personalized campaigns enables marketers to create relevant content that resonates with customers and engages on a more human level. This builds brand loyalty as customers are recognized as individuals rather than a collective.
Years of congested inboxes has led to people becoming attuned to hitting the delete button without even reading the subject line or when they don’t recognize the sender. Personalization provides the opportunity to capture attention and enhance engagement.
Find out how Elastic Grid incorporate personalization into campaigns.
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