People like things that reflect their values as an individual. There’s a reason why Apple offers engraving on their products and why personalized number plates are popular. People like to have unique experiences and buy products that they can customize in some way to reflect their personality.
So why should the purchase journey online be any different?
Personalization in eCommerce has been around for a while now, but what is it and what does it entail? And how can it improve ROI? And how could it help companies engage their staff?
Let’s get personal and find out…
What is personalization?
Put simply, personalization is a method that businesses use to create tailored experiences or communications for individual customers. And this is based on information that the business has gathered (and holds) about their customers on an individual level.
As we are about to discover, personalization can also be done both on and offline. Or via a combination of the two, which is often referred to as part of an O2O (or omnichannel) strategy.
Commerce Personalization
Just about any channel with any type of customer interaction can be enhanced with personalization.
For businesses, when they begin to implement a personalization strategy, the main channels they tend to focus on are the biggest contact points. These include websites, smartphone apps, email communications, web apps (like Saas portals etc etc), online customer support (chats) and call centers.
If the company has physical locations then those locations can also form part of a personalization strategy. If you want to know more about O2O, we’ve written a four part guide on what you need to think about when thinking about an O2O strategy. Part 2 of the guide focuses specifically on attribution with part 3 looking at identity graphs, which are two things that are essential for a personalized O2O strategy.
Personalization relies on information that you hold (or can gather) on your customers. Without tying these disparate sources of information together, into a consistent format, it is very difficult to implement a successful personalization strategy. In fact, 63% of digital marketers think that data-driven personalization is a difficult tactic, rather than an effective one.
A business that wants to put together a personalization strategy needs to tie together information from sources as varied as location and personal information such as gender all the way through to mouse movement on personalized web pages. It’s easy to see why those marketers think personalization is a difficult task.
This is why most businesses, and marketing agencies, work with a personalization partner like MAQE. We can help you create an engaging personalization strategy, activate your data or even create new platforms that will help you to get started with personalization. Just get in touch with us via [email protected] to discuss your needs.
The benefits of commerce personalization
There are very real, very tangible benefits to giving your customers unique digital experiences.
71% of consumers prefer personalized ads. Those consumers, around 44% of them according to marketing dives’ survey, are also more likely to provide personal information to get more personalized advertising. This is a gold mine for brands and marketing agencies, but as previously discussed, there is still a skills gap that means that it’s difficult for brands and marketing agencies to take advantage of this by themselves.
Personalization can positively impact a company’s bottom line. ClickZ reports that companies using advanced personalization tactics see a $20 return on every $1 dollar spent. Customer acquisition costs are also lower, with Adweek reporting that acquisition costs on average can be as much as 50% lower.
Standing out in a crowded marketplace is getting tougher by the day. By implementing a personalization strategy you can cut costs, increase ROI and engage more customers.
But that’s not all…
Personalization for employees
Personalization isn’t just for raising sales and increasing ROI. It also has its uses in the work environment.
Specifically with regards to learning, development and training staff. Especially during the pandemic when many companies are working remotely.
A lot of workplaces, particularly large enterprises, have several generations of employees working together at the same time. From baby boomers to generation z, each demographic group has a different comfort level with online learning. By using the information you hold about your employees, you can create personalized learning experiences to engage and train your staff. Online learning is nothing new for most big companies, but most of them do not utilize the data they have to give their staff a better learning experience.
This means staff get better training that speaks directly to them and companies get more effective staff as a result of this more engaging training. Creating a positive growth loop that can have an impact on employee happiness through to retention levels.
Personalized training can help staff work faster, smarter and happier.
How MAQE can help
If you are a business who wants to increase sales, a marketing agency that needs personalization help or an employer who wants to create a personalized learning platform, MAQE can help. Just talk to us via [email protected] and we’ll be happy to discuss your needs.