Personalisation is a cornerstone of modern marketing. By personalising specific aspects of your marketing, you can engage your customers on a deeper level, building loyalty and boosting customer satisfaction. But how do you go about personalising your tactics? Below, we’ll provide an overview of the term “personalisation,” highlight its various types, and suggest some general guidelines and best practices for using it successfully.
What is Personalisation?
Personalisation is the process of tailoring content, messaging, services, or products to the individual needs of each customer. It’s a way of letting the customer know that you’ve taken the time to pay attention to their behaviour, preferences, and needs.
The goal of personalisation is to create an individualised customer experience that feels more valuable and is more likely to produce a favourable outcome. By showing customers you understand them, you can gain trust and loyalty. Personalised messages, services and products can reduce customer churn and increase revenue.
Types of Personalisation
Personalisation takes many forms, and marketers should explore which techniques will be most effective and efficient for their business.
Content personalisation refers to personalizing your website, emails and other content to match personal preferences and behaviour. For example, you might use personalisation to tailor the offers and information someone sees, the type of images used, and the copy within emails.
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Product personalisation, meanwhile, allows customers to customise products to fit their exact needs. Whether you’re allowing customers to choose the colour of their product or create customised, made-to-order pieces, product personalisation can be great for boosting sales, as customers tend to value customised products.
Another type of personalisation is behavioural personalisation. This involves collecting data around customer’s behaviour – such as pages they visit on the website, clicks, and the time they spend on a page, and using this to inform personalised messages that are sent at the exact right time.
Guidelines and Best Practices
When personalising content and messaging, it’s important to be mindful of the privacy and security of customers, especially with the introduction of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Ensure you comply with all data regulations when collecting and storing customer data, and give customers the chance to opt-out if they don’t want to be marketed to.
Your personalisation should be subtle and nuanced, not intrusive or crass. If a customer gets a message that feels too targeted and invasive, it could put them off using your services or buying your products.
Before you start any personalisation efforts, make sure you understand your customers. Gather data that is relevant to the type of personalisation you want to do, and keep on top of any changes that may affect it. Start small and find quick wins that you can use to learn from, measure, and adjust as needed.
Finally, personalisation should be an ongoing process, as customer behaviour and needs are constantly changing. Measure the effectiveness of your personalisation tactics and keep track of the actions you’ve taken, so you can refine your methods and continue to be strategic in your approach.