How To Make Great Personalised Marketing

There’s no doubt that personalised marketing has risen in popularity.

When it comes to digital marketing, companies and brands are struggling to make sure that their campaigns are effective and worth the money they spend.

Social media marketing has risen in popularity. AI marketing is starting to make waves. And now, companies are desperate to build emotional connections with their consumers to guarantee their returned service.

Now, amongst these new efforts for brands to connect with their consumers, comes personalised marketing.

But, what is it?

How do I use it for my business?

And how effective is it, really?

Read on to find out.

According to Emarsys, “Personalized marketing is the implementation of a strategy by which companies deliver individualized content to recipients through data collection, analysis, and the use of automation technology.

The goal of this is to truly engage customers or prospective customers by communicating with each as an individual.”

Meaning, that personalised marketing’s number one goal is to connect with customers. This is usually achieved by compelling them to use your services through direct communication.

Examples of such can be emails addressed to consumers by their name or push notifications also.

Or, it can also include specific recommendations to each consumer based on their previous purchasing history.

But how effective is it really?

Well, according to Pure360, 93% of businesses saw an increase in conversion rates following the implementation of personal marketing strategies.

That’s a huge increase!

What’s more, on the consumer end, Infosys found that 59% of consumers explicitly mentioned that personalised marketing influenced what they purchased.

Because of this, there seems to be a direct correlation between consumers who experience personalised marketing and consumers who purchase.

Why? Well, because consumers like to feel special. They don’t want brands or companies sending them generic emails about their latest products. Especially if it’s about the information that is irrelevant to them.

They want to be only told about the good stuff.

Whether this is specials specifically for them or emails with their name on it. Consumers are more compelled by this type of marketing.

So, what are some examples of personalised marketing?

One of the first things you should consider when it comes to personalised marketing is emails and push notifications.

Emails that are specific to the consumer are 3x more likely to be ultimately opened. This is in comparison to a generic email sent out to everyone, according to EmailMonks.

But how do you do this?

It can be something as simple as including the consumer’s name or username in the email heading. Or, sending an email about products they’ve left in their shopping basket and not bought.

There are plenty of AI services out there that can do this for you. Don’t worry about having to send out the emails yourself!

One great example of the use of emails and push notifications comes from Netflix.

Netflix takes user’s data – what they’ve previously watched, what’s on their lists, what they rated highly – and sends recommendations based on this.

What’s more, the start of every email and notification includes the consumer’s name.

For the consumer, this helps weed out the emails from spam.

They’re much more likely to swipe away a notification or email if they don’t see anything eye-catching – like their name, for example.

Another great idea is suggesting recommended products and purchases to consumers.

These are essentially based upon user history and what they’ve previously viewed. And again, can be simply done with an AI service.

If you want to find out more about the future of AI marketing, read this article here.

So, why is this such an effective tool for marketing?

Personalised recommendations can be anything from ‘have you seen this?’, to ‘we think you’d love this’. Or, ‘based on your recent purchase history, we think you’d love…’

Including words like “love”, “enjoy”, or “want” are great ways of proving that you know what the consumer wants. You’re not just guessing. You’re providing them specific recommendations uniquely chosen.

But just how effective are these personalised recommendations, really?

Well, the conversion rate for consumers who were only sent recommended products was 5.5x higher than for customers who were only sent regular recommendations, according to smartinsights.

Because of this, it’s certainly a good idea to start working on product recommendations for your consumers. See how much it’ll improve your conversion rates.

When it comes to marketing, videos are one of the best ways to go.

Consumers love visuals which they can share with others, especially if they’re included in it.

What’s more, consumers get sometimes excited to see that they’ve in some way been included in the marketing. As such, they are much more likely to click through to the website or product.

But, what sort of videos work?

Well, Cadbury’s Australian campaign was a great example of personalised marketing.

In their campaign, users were first encouraged to connect their Facebook accounts to the “Flavour Matcher” app. This would recommend them one of Cadbury’s new chocolate bars in a personalised video. Their result was overall calculated from their Facebook data – including age, location, and gender.

Then, consumers were subsequently encouraged to share their videos on social media. Boosting the brand’s engagement.

Ultimately, the campaign was a huge success.

According to Idomoo, the people who created the “Flavour Matcher” app, Cadbury saw that 90% of users watched the video.

What’s more, the campaign saw a 65% click-through rate, with 12.23% of users sharing the video on social media.

If you want to move beyond the simple ‘name in an email’ type of personalised marketing, then this may be a tip for you.

Lots of businesses will ask users for their birthday when they are creating their account.

This is partly to do with making sure they are of the right age. But for some businesses – especially eCommerce stores – this has a different purpose too.

As well as age checking, businesses will sometimes keep track of a consumer’s birthday to offer them special rewards.

Money off codes, congratulations emails, and special offers are just a few of the ways you can use a consumer’s special day to get some personalised marketing in there.

In fact, many consumers start specifically looking out for these birthday emails when the day starts getting closer.

Ultimately, it doesn’t cost much to your brand to offer a special discount for your consumers. Especially when they’re more likely to buy something else alongside this and make the money back.

Yet, this all sounds well and good. But if personalised marketing is so great, why doesn’t every brand do it? How is it not the standard for marketing?

Whilst personalised marketing is definitely on the rise, there are some issues with it which are impeding its popularity…

Whilst some consumers may want it, they may not trust it.

Lately, consumers are wary of how their information is being used and distributed. This is partly because of the rise in awareness about data usage in the news and media.

Because of this, some businesses are choosing to avoid personalised marketing as a way to not deter potential customers.

Whilst it may be a small minority of people, some actually unsubscribe from emails after receiving personalised marketing.

Because of this, businesses have to take a gamble on whether or not their consumers would be potentially interested.

If your target demographic is younger, likely they’ll expect it.

However, if your target demographic is older, they may be somewhat put off by personalised marketing due to a lack of understanding.

It’s something businesses need to consider when launching their marketing campaigns.

Personalised marketing isn’t cheap.

If you’re a small business or a new company, likely you won’t have the budget for a full-scale personalised marketing campaign.

Given that most personalised marketing campaigns require an AI service, they can only be accessible for larger and more financially lucrative businesses.

Because of this, some companies simply do not have the option of personalised marketing.

Meaning that, ultimately, it isn’t entirely accessible for all.

Overall, personalised marketing is a great way to win over consumers.

The numbers don’t lie.

They show how easily it compels consumers to buy products. And, how much consumers appreciate emails and product recommendations specific to them.

So, after reading this, will you be turning to personalised marketing for your next marketing campaign?