From a marketing perspective, digital technology has given us capacities we only dreamed of a few decades ago – especially with internet marketing.
Widespread adoption of smartphones and other internet-capable gadgets paired with ultra-fast wireless connections have given consumers the ability to thoroughly research the companies they do business with in order to find the perfect product or service, paving the way for personalized marketing.
Sure, you can promote your services using dozens of different digital marketing techniques like SEO, PPC, social media, and email campaigns just to name a few.
All of these can deliver superb results, but you also need to use every tool at your disposal to engage your audience.
Resource: What Is Digital Marketing? (Definition Meant, Types, & Media Advertising Examples)
Personalized marketing is an innovative approach that allows you to create tailored content that creates a deep connection with your audience.
Like other digital approaches, marketing personalization works extremely well when combined with other forms of online promotion.
As a matter of fact, personalized ads and other personalization tactics can be the secret sauce you need to ramp up conversions and connect with potential buyers at a deeper level.
While it’s proven to be effective, you need to understand personalized marketing and the different elements that influence the success of your efforts.
At Fannit, our team has experience building personalization strategies for companies in different industries, so we understand how tailoring your materials can impact your overall marketing scheme.
Let’s go over the personalized marketing definition and everything you need to know about this customer-centric approach.
What is Personalized Marketing?
In a nutshell, personalized marketing is an approach that lets you tailor your content to individual prospects.
Sometimes referred to as personalization or one-on-one marketing, this technique is similar to SEO, content marketing, and other digital techniques because it revolves around your customers.
Instead of blasting your audience and relying on volume, marketing personalization is a sophisticated tactic that helps you deliver a concise message at the right time, so you get the most out of each interaction.
The idea behind personalizing marketing content became popular due to the difficulties of engaging consumers who were constantly bombarded with different forms of mostly irrelevant advertising.
Consumers learned to tune out all ads because the vast majority did not provide any value to them.
So, the best way to connect with each user was to include personalized content that would undoubtedly catch their attention.
Research shows that up to 90% of consumers find irrelevant advertising annoying, so putting up the same ad for everyone to see will shut down your chances of building a meaningful relationship with your audience.
The best way to captivate your audience and establish a base of loyal, engaged visitors is to start personalizing your marketing materials.
Advantages of Marketing Personalization
Now that we’ve answered the question “what is personalization in marketing?” it’s time to explore some of the benefits this tactic can bring to your company.
The main goal for most promotion strategies is to generate more sales, but personalization can increase the number of leads and improve the way consumers perceive your brand.
Before you deliver a tailored message, you need to collect personal information from visitors on your site.
This is where SEO and other techniques can help support your personalized content.
By increasing the amount of traffic on your site and collecting personal information like names, email addresses, and other details, you’ll have everything you need to craft content specifically for your audience members.
If implemented properly, the result is a more engaged audience, a higher number of potential customers, and increased lead generation.
Personalized Content is Appealing, Engaging, and Valuable
It’s clear that your target audience doesn’t have all forms of marketing, just irrelevant advertising.
Personalization marketing ensures that your content is crafted according to your audience’s needs, so potential customers are more likely to listen to your message without feeling any negative emotions.
It’s common for consumers to research products for days, weeks, or even months before making a purchase.
Personalization can help you build better remarketing campaigns for your company, so the ads that customers see will also serve as a reminder of products they would like to purchase.
It’s important to avoid coming off too strong with your advertising in order to deliver value.
Some consumers may not be sold on the idea of giving up so much information so that companies can sell them better products. Instead of being aggressive, keep a positive tone and let your audience come to you.
Content That’s Personalized is More Convenient
If you want to score high in terms of relevance and value, you need to offer practical and convenient content. Personalization is all about adjusting your current resources and producing new content that your audience finds useful.
Therefore, you need to create materials that are convenient in every sense of the world.
Your content should provide functional information in an easy to read format, plus giving users the ability to download your materials may also increase the value of your materials.
Marketing Campaigns with Personalized Content Can Generate More Leads
Your website and online resources are a digital representation of your company.
Potential customers rely on your digital platforms to learn more about your solutions, so you need to create a tailored experience for users who access your company website or interact with any of your online channels.
Creating a better customer experience will encourage potential customers to contact your company, thus increasing the number of leads you generate.
Even if your message remains the same, developing personalized emails and similar materials can exponentially improve the performance of your campaign.
Resource: What is Google AdWords & How Do Ads Work? (Pay Per Click & Network Use Fundamentals)
Personalized Marketing Tips for Success
Marketing personalization can’t be done overnight. It’s a gradual process that requires you to learn as much as you can about your audience and apply the knowledge you gain to your promotional materials.
You also need to conduct some tests to figure out which combinations result in higher engagement metrics and implement your findings throughout your campaign.
One in three people believes that personalization is essential for a marketing message to be relevant.
To be successful, you need to discuss topics that your audience wants to know about and avoid mistakes like including the wrong location or misspelling individual user’s names.
Although it’s not easy to implement, one-on-one marketing can improve the overall performance of your promotion machine while delighting current and future customers.
This approach is flexible, so you need to create a custom strategy for your company that includes a specific list of goals as well as the resources you have available to achieve these.
Here are some general tips that will help you implement a winning personalized promotion strategy.
Understand What Your Audience Needs
It’s impossible to build personalized campaigns without extensive knowledge about your target audiences. Most companies have multiple audiences, which can be defined as demographic groups that are more likely to be interested in a company’s services.
You need to identify these audiences and find a way to analyze the trends as well as the different behavioral patterns to produce appealing content.
There are a couple of different ways you can research your audience’s needs. First of all, take a look at your current customer base and separate them into different groups based on their similarities.
Analyze the different purchase history reports and try to find variables that affect the shopping experience.
You should study these clusters to figure out what your customers’ biggest challenges are and how your product or services can solve the problem.
After conducting internal research, you also need to use Google Trends and other business intelligence tools to find new ideas that have a higher chance of producing good results based on the popularity metrics.
Remember Each Customer!
Remembering each customer goes beyond checking your email list to make sure that all names are spelled correctly.
Those types of errors are already annoying enough, but potential customers are even more frustrated when there is no consistency between the materials they receive and their stage of the journey.
A good example would be a company that has scheduled a demo with a potential customer, but then sends the prospect an email encouraging him or her to sign up for the same event.
This makes your audience feel like you are not marketing personalized services or that you care very little about each customer’s individual experience.
Anticipate Potential Opportunities to Up-Sell or Cross-Sell
Personalization goes beyond customer experience because it can also help you close more sales.
If you know a current customer’s purchase history, you’ll be able to create more effective promotional materials based on the data you already have.
Not only this, but marketing personalization can also help you anticipate potential opportunities for up-selling or cross-selling new products and services to existing customers.
It’s similar to what car dealers do when they offer additional insurance, accessories, and other products to new vehicle owners that are usually interested in purchasing these goods.
Which Channels Work Well with Personalization Strategies?
Marketing personalization is an effective approach because it’s suitable for a variety of different digital channels.
It works with both paid and organic techniques, so it’s a great option to attract new customers for companies in all industries.
Just remember to use the data you have available and take into account the variations that may influence your business or industry as a whole.
Some of the channels you can use to launch a tailored marketing campaign include:
Websites and Apps
Your website may be the easiest channel to personalize because you’re in full control of the changes that take place on the platform.
Websites allow you to publish content in all types of formats, plus you can use innovative code elements that adjust your pages’ contents based on each visitor.
For instance, you can personalize websites so that they include calls-to-action for visitors and sign-in queues for members who have already signed up to the platform.
Personalizing websites is a great way to deliver a better experience to your prospects, but you can also use your company app to send custom messages to each customer. If you need assistance with your site maintenance Fannit is here to help.
Social Media Profiles
Social media networks have helped companies overcome communication barriers, but these platforms are also perfect to create a personalized experience for customers.
In the context of marketing, personalizing your materials also means getting in front of your customers in a seemingly natural way.
Facebook and other social networks create tailored feeds for their members, so you can use these platforms’ tracking features to create remarketing campaigns specifically for people who didn’t convert the first time.
Emails
Email marketing is among the oldest forms of personalization, but this doesn’t mean it’s easy to master.
Marketing emails are easy to customize and present information in an easy-to-digest format, plus they’re not invasive.
That said, many companies have taken the opportunity to blast users with irrelevant information, which has earned emails a bad reputation for having low conversion rates.
Personalization email campaigns are ultra-engaging and can produce a significantly higher return-on-income (ROI) than other forms of digital marketing.
However, you need to take the time to understand the buyer’s journey and build your sequence based on this data.
Videos and Paid Ads
Yes, personalized videos represent a bigger investment in terms of resources, but they are also the ultimate tool in terms of engagement.
From infographics to animated memes, humans love visual content because it delivers complex messages in a matter of seconds.
And, if you have the right team, you can create easy-to-personalize videos that only require superimposing your target’s name and recording a few simple voice clips.
Some forms of paid advertising also allow a high degree of personalization, but you need to review all the data to figure out how each platform works.
In theory it should be easy, but you want to ensure that the paid platform gives you the ability to target specific users without breaching privacy norms.
Tools You Need for Personalized Marketing Campaigns
Like any other digital promotion strategy, you need a set of tools that can help you collect and analyze large volumes of data.
One of the biggest challenges you will face when implementing personalization is scalability and consistency.
You need to create a well-oiled machine that lets you achieve sustainable growth and acquire quality leads on a regular basis.
There are many tools you can use to launch a personalized promotion campaign, but the four you need to have include:
Data Management Platforms
Today, companies can choose from a wide variety of data management platforms, which are tools specifically designed to run personalized marketing campaigns.
Data management tools allow you to collect, manage, and use information that comes from different channels.
These platforms can ensure that your individual audience members receive engaging personalized messages at the best possible time.
Many data management platforms are owned by leading technology companies like Oracle and Adobe, but keep in mind that managing this campaign may be a full-time job depending on factors like size and final objective.
Tracking and Analytics Tools
Collecting data is a crucial practice and it doesn’t stop after you’ve created your campaign.
Personalization campaigns need to be tracked and monitored, so you need to have an effective data-collection tool that presents information in a practical format.
There are many different tracking tools you can choose, but at Fannit we favor Google Analytics because it’s effective, accurate, and doesn’t involve additional costs.
Not to mention the fact that the data you track through Google Analytics can be used to optimize your personalization, SEO, and other digital campaigns.
Customer Relations Management (CRM) Software
In order to create a fully tailored experience for your prospects, you need to get the basics right.
Before you start thinking about custom emails and other materials, you have to ensure that the information that prospects get is consistent.
If your potential clients receive information from your sales department that doesn’t match what the marketing team said, it will have a negative effect on the experience.
A customer relations management (CRM) platform can help ensure that all contacts with prospects and current clients are recorded in one single place.
With a CRM, you can store contact data, take notes every time your team interacts with a client, and make this information available to other employees.
Plus, this tool can also help you visualize your sales funnel and show you at what point of the buyer’s journey each one of your leads is at
Email Marketing and Automation Tools
Taking the time to write an email for each one of your customers may sound like a nice symbolic gesture, but this practice is not feasible in terms of scalability.
Email marketing and automation tools allow you to accelerate the process and engage with thousands of prospects with a few well-crafted sequences.
The key to successful email marketing is to design distinct sequences for the different audiences you’re targeting.
By segmenting your audiences and developing dedicated materials for each group, you’ll have an easier time personalizing the messages that will be sent out to specific users.
The 3 Keys to Successful Personalized Marketing
Personalizing your marketing materials can help accelerate the buyer’s journey and transform top-of-the-funnel prospects into sales-ready leads in a relatively short time span.
By implementing this approach, you can boost your sales while building a reputable brand that your audience trusts.
There are three key elements that will help you achieve success when developing a personalization strategy. These are:
Engaging Content
It’s estimated that 4 out of 5 customers are more likely to be engaged with your marketing and make a purchase if you provide a tailored experience.
The whole point of personalization is to produce eye-catching, engaging promotional materials that your audience can’t resist.
This means that you have to include elements that your audience finds attractive while giving them snippets of information that make them want more.
When you take the time to study your audience and identify tactics that have had success, the content you produce tends to be more engaging, so you should thoroughly research your potential customers before moving onto any other step.
Contextual Relevance
Successful campaigns also require the consistent production of contextually-relevant information. Knowing what elements your audience finds engaging is just part of the equation.
To be relevant, you need to present your engaging materials at the right time.
If the timing is not right, your ads and other materials won’t convert regardless of how good they are, so you need to get it right if you want to achieve the best results.
Like engagement, studying your audience is the only way to identify the best times to deliver your message.
It’s important to analyze large sets of behavioral data as these will tell you what days and times your audience is the most active.
Trustworthiness
If you successfully master engaging content and contextual relevance, your company will naturally become trustworthy.
One of the downsides of online marketing is that you’re competing with many other distractions that also want to catch your audience’s attention.
If you manage to engage users at crucial stages, your company will begin to stand out and earn a reputation for quality.
Keep in mind that trustworthiness depends heavily on the type of experience you create for your customers.
If you produce engaging content that’s delivered at the right moment but you don’t work on creating an attractive landing page, your audience will start tuning you out like most other companies.
How to Implement Personalized Marketing Into Your Promotion Strategy
If you want to implement personalization into your marketing mix, you need to:
Conduct Research and Analyze the Customer Data You Collect
We’ve extensively discussed the importance of studying your audience and collecting data about potential customers because it’s the first step in your quest to develop a successful strategy.
Business owners may feel like they already have a good understanding of their audiences, but this is not always the case.
You should analyze trends and other data you have available to uncover new pieces of information about your audience.
The data you uncover in this step will affect other parts of the implementation process, so start by analyzing internal data and then scour any external sources that may provide useful details.
Create Stereotypical Representations of Each Ideal Customer
There are some exceptions, but most companies sell products and services to different demographics.
Each one of these groups has unique needs and is attracted to different elements, so it’s impossible to create one marketing plan that appeals to your entire audience.
Instead of settling for a promotion plan that doesn’t really fit the bill, you should create buyer personas.
Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers and you can draw inspiration from them to design different campaigns that target distinct segments of your audience.
Resource: https://www.fannit.com/blog/customer-segmentation/
Prepare a Detailed Blueprint
Having an organized and detailed promotion strategy will help ensure the success of your promotion efforts.
This doesn’t only mean that you need to have a blueprint of your personalization plan, but you also have to understand how it will work with the rest of your marketing plan.
The best approach is to create a promotion strategy that includes all digital elements at the same time.
Basing your plan off holistic philosophies like inbound or content marketing will allow you to implement tailored promotional materials as well as other tactics, including SEO, email campaigns, and social media, just to name a few.
Remember, you need to be as detailed as possible when crafting your plan. You can brainstorm ideas to get the creative juices flowing, but once you create your plan you need to include a realistic budget and explain how you will spend these resources.
Craft the Initial Content
Unless you’re a startup, there’s a good chance you already have some information about current and potential customers.
Once you’ve developed your plan, you need to start crafting the initial content you will use on the audience you’ve already engaged.
Keep in mind that tailoring your materials is a continuous process.
It’s impossible to create all of the resources you’ll need at once, so you shouldn’t waste time crafting materials in advance.
The results of your first set of materials will determine your course of action, so focus on creating quality pieces to start with and make changes based on how your audience behaves.
You may need to support your tailored materials with blogs and other promotional tools, so also take the time to create these during this stage.
Just make sure that all of the resources you create are easy to customize later on.
Implement the Tools that Will Make Personalization Possible
The final step before launching your campaign is to implement and deploy the tools that will give you the ability to tailor your materials.
We’ve thoroughly discussed the essential tools you need to have, but you should weigh all the options you have available and choose the best ones your budget allows.
Future-Proofing Your Personalized Marketing Plan
Like SEO and other digital strategies, you need to monitor the performance of your campaign and make adjustments that allow you to stay competitive. In order to future-proof your personalization tactic, you need to:
- Implement innovative technology
- Adapt to changing consumer trends
- Establish new business structures
- Ensure compliance at all times
Want to Start Personalizing Your Marketing? Contact Fannit and We’ll Be Glad to Help
Personalizing strategies are a complex and advanced form of promotion, but these can shorten the buyer’s journey and allow you to get more conversions and boost your ROI.
If you want to learn more about this promotion strategy and how to combine it with SEO or other tactics, contact Fannit today and we’ll be glad to help.
