DIGITAL INTERACTIVE SERVICES

The effectiveness of personalized content

Amazon, Netflix, HubSpot: What is the one common thing that all of them use? Personalised content for their consumers.   Recommendations, emails, suggestions — we are bombarded with personalised content continuously through various means. The ‘suggested for you’ listing that you keep choosing from, it works, doesn’t it?

Today’s consumers expect it (check statistics below)

• 80% of consumers are more inclined to buy from a brand offering a customised experience.
• 70% of consumers accept that their loyalty to a brand depends on how well it understands their individual needs.
• 42% of customers find impersonal content frustrating.

And marketers know it. More statistics:

• 60% of marketers claim that their digital content is highly personalised.
• 79% of retail businesses invest in personalisation tools (that is more than any other industry).
• 51% of marketers prioritise personalisation above all other marketing strategies.

Why brands must personalise content

Personalisation is not solely based on customer wants. It has these advantages which account for why it has taken the top spot:

• Lead nurturing and conversion: Three factors that increase the likelihood of converting leads to customers: convey the right message at the right time, understand the lead’s interests and behaviour, and personalise their experience. Consider a lead's status in the marketing/sales funnel when personalising content. For instance, you should display relevant product-based material for your bottom-of-the-funnel leads and generic content for your top-of-the-funnel leads.
• Higher revenue: Providing product recommendations and a personalised experience are effective ways to drive sales. Additionally, reliable service and superior product offerings encourage repeat purchases. "Attract, sell and sell again" is a proven mantra to boost revenue.
• Customer engagement: Marketing teams can provide customers with relevant content, products, and services that pique their interest and maintain their engagement for a longer amount of time. This is done by keeping track of user information, preferences, and behaviour.
• Customer retention: It is more expensive to win new customers than to retain existing ones. Therefore, businesses must keep up-to-date information about their customers to deliver personalised messages and relevant marketing promotions tailored to them. If customers are happy with the marketing content and quality, enterprises have a higher chance of retaining them.

Ways to engage in personalised marketing

• Emails: How can you grab consumers' attention with your email?
  An essential first step is to inspire users to open the mail (interesting subject lines should do the trick here). Additionally, the email body must be tailored to deliver content that interests users. A few examples of personalised email types include welcome emails, cart abandonment emails (a follow-up email sent to someone who leaves a website without purchasing items in their shopping cart), birthday emails, etc.
• Product recommendations: Amazon suggesting a "similar" product or Netflix recommending movies is not magic. Customer purchase histories, interactions, and ratings are like an open book for recommendation algorithms and an effective way to encourage more purchases.
• Webpages: Marketers can personalise web pages that tailor the experience to whether customers are first-time visitors or repeat customers. For example, first time visitors may be displayed a welcome message and introductory content. Repeat visitors may be thrown a "Welcome back!" message or an abandoned cart reminder.
• Social Media: Social media has become the backbone of multichannel initiatives. By communicating with potential clients via social media channels and distributing tailored content, businesses can boost customer loyalty, thereby increasing conversions.

How effective is personalised marketing?

A pertinent question that marketing executives and business decision-makers have:

How much impact does investing in personalisation have on the bottom line? Numbers answer this question best:

• 79% of companies that surpass revenue goals have a clearly defined personalisation strategy
• 83% of companies that exceed sales targets have a committed personalisation budget
• Personalisation increases marketing spend efficiency by as much as 30%
• 98% of marketers consider that personalisation helps boost customer relationships

A dash of personal touch goes a long way

People like attention, or the notion that they are getting it. Even in today’s highly digital world, knowing that every content they receive is auto-generated, a small personal touch is sufficient to give them the perception that they are being attended to.

Thankfully, content personalisation tools, abundant customer data and cutting-edge technology have made it feasible for marketers to keep up with delivering personalised content.

It is not an exaggeration to say that content personalisation is a great marketing strategy differentiator. By targeting the right people with the right information at the right time, personalisation has been able to make consumers feel understood, influence their purchasing decisions, and hold them in sway.

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