5 reasons to start today with online personalization

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5 reasons to start with personalization

Customers today expect a hyper-personalized experience at every touch-point they have with your company. In fact, you need to make sure that every visitor on your website, every customer who gets your emails, and every person who receives communication from your company via another channel is presented with the right information at the right time. And that information should be as relevant as possible to the known profile. This ranges from a chat window that pops up on a website to the complete personalization of a website. Adapting an online product range to the wishes and needs of the customer. This way, you can create a unique user experience for the visitor and respond to his or her personal needs. 

32% of all customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience.

What is content personalization?

In short? Personalizing content for a specific audience or individual.

In long? It is a strategy whereby web pages, the content of other media and all types of communication are tailored to the characteristics or preferences of individual users. Your visitors' data is used to provide relevant content that increases both your users' satisfaction and the likelihood of conversion. 

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

Reason 1: Personalization is important for every business. 

Personalization. Sounds like a lot of work, effort, and time? Wrong, both large and small businesses are able to personalize relatively easily with the right tools and strategy. Every bit helps. The same goes for personalization. Therefore, start with quick wins and easy implementations. Then build-out and start scaling. 

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. 

Reason 3: You prolong the time on your website and lure them back in 

By personalizing your content per individual, you ensure that your customers stay longer on your website. For example by recommending relevant content. Show content related to the topic that might interest this person at the bottom of a blog, show similar products under the section "Others also bought..." or create a pop-up for a relevant event in the neighborhood. This way, your visitor is inclined to click through to other pages and stay on your website. 

In addition, make sure to bring customers back to your website, with emails for example. This can be done by a personalized newsletter in which you show products customized for your customer. Or send an abandoned shopping cart email with the message that there is still something in his online shopping cart and whether he is still interested. By sending your customer relevant content for their profile on a regular basis you always stay top of mind and strengthen the connection with your clients.

Lead nurturing

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. 

Reason 5: You’ve collected their data, use it! 

We can't stress enough how important qualitative customer data is. In exchange for their data, you provide a better experience on your website. Make sure to get this data in the right way, that you’ve stored it securely and that you have the right permission to use it for your benefit. 

Your customer database is a goldmine of interesting data about your customers. Not doing anything with it? All the effort you put into collecting it was a waste of time. Start analyzing your data, determine your strategy and take action.

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. 

Read the blog

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