32% of all customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience.
Example
If a person previously filtered on 'women's shoes + size 40 + black', then you can assume that this customer is a woman, with a shoe size 40. So for her, it's more relevant to highlight mostly women's shoes in your next newsletter. If you also make sure that you only show shoes that are still available in size 40, your customer experience will even improve.
5 reasons why you should personalize your content
Example
Customers from your database usually have a name stored with their profile. Use it. An easy way to make your content personal is to address the email to their actual name. The difference between "Dear miss", or "Hello Els" makes a huge difference as an entry point. And as I’ve said: every bit helps.
Personalizing by the first name is just the start. You really can go wild. Just look at Amazon, one of the best examples of content personalization. You may be just starting out, but they've been at it for years. Their homepage is completely personalized for your profile. For example, you see reviews, recommended products, and your viewing history of previous products. It might be a little too ambitious for your company, but you can learn from the best, pick out what suits you and apply it to your website.
Reason 2: Outsmart your competitors
We all want to stand out. So make sure you have cool promotions and campaigns to surprise your customers. A birthday email may not be so groundbreaking anymore, but how about an email when your visitor has been a customer for one year? Or maybe a pop-up with a discount code when your customer visits your website for the 100th time. The possibilities are endless.
It's all about the experience your customer gets on your website. If it's good, your customer is happy. Your business will feel it too. Win-win.
Example
Spotify, for example, is a champ at giving recommendations. Based on the music you listened to in the past, Spotify suggests songs you might also like. Very useful for finding music you've probably never heard of before. Netflix works in the exact same way. Based on your watched movies and series, your lists are completely personalized. Compare with your friends! Want to bet it’s completely different?
Reason 4: You strengthen the relationship with your customer because you know him really well
Watch out, there’s a fine line between personalizing just enough and acting like big brother. The trick is to find the right balance between personalizing your messages without scaring off your website visitors. After all, far-reaching personalization can feel like an invasion of your website visitors’ privacy, and that is of course not the intention. So make sure you have a transparent approach.
If you do it right, you strengthen the relationship with your customers. After all, you are on a first-name basis, you don't forget any birthdays and you know exactly what your visitor likes. Lost for a moment? You provide them with the right tips and recommendations. Exactly what your visitor needs at that moment.
A few examples
- Date of birth: Send your customers a birthday email with a personal message and maybe even a discount code.
- Email statistics: Personalize the time of sending out, based on the moment your customer is mostly online.
- Online shop behavior: Your customer puts something in his shopping cart but doesn't checkout? Send a reminder email the day after that there’s still something in their cart.
- Interests: Personalize the content of your newsletter based on the profile of your clients. You can adjust the subject line, the content, and the order of the articles per recipient.
A personalized birthday email in Mautic
Sounds complicated, setting up a personalized email for your customers? My colleague Toon wrote a practical blog post on how to do it in a few steps with Mautic.