The Rise of Personalisation

Why is it that some of your best buys are the ones that seem to find you?

They casually slip on to your Facebook feed or show up as soon as you hit Amazon. It’s almost as if they know the problem that you need to solve. OR, one step further. You have a new “problem” that you had never realised existed. Suddenly, you realise that you “need” that mini blender for your baby (with little pots included!) even though, admittedly, you have a fully functioning large blender that could do the job perfectly well.

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What is Personalised Marketing?

To be frank, the one-size-fits-all approach just doesn’t cut it anymore. 

In the early 2000’s it seemed like a pretty simple process. An organisation might include your name in an email in the hope to gain some valuable data in their CRM. Back to 2023, that would be considered as less than impressive.

In short, personalisation is a marketing strategy that:

• treats customers as individuals with unique qualities 
• seeks to better understand their customers
• seeks genuine and meaningful connections with their customers

But how does it do this?

By using up-to-date digital data to provide tailored communications and relevant offers. 

We no longer want to prioritise just the reach of an audience. Personalised marketing focuses on the needs and interests of the customer. Think messages that are tailored to individuals or segments of customers across the channels that they use on the daily. This could be Social Media, Google, YouTube, Email, SMS, and so on.

In 2023, there is an overwhelming amount of options available when it comes to personalised marketing. A good choice would depend on your organisation’s needs, and most importantly, your target market’s needs. But for now, let’s focus on some of the popular and commonly effective choices.

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Targeted Ads 

Targeted ads enable you to communicate with the right customers by understanding their interests and traits.

How? Cookies and Pixels.

Cookies are small pieces of data that save information about visitors to websites. This information could include broad demographic data such a location and age but it also includes more detailed behavioural data like what kind of products your customer is looking at. This information is then stored by a third-party advertising network. 

Pixels are small pieces of code that are placed on websites and used to track user behavior and collect data for advertising purposes. Platforms also use pixels to track when a user clicks on an ad, and lands on a website or landing page. This information is used to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns and optimise them for better performance. 

Let’s say that you are a company that sells phones. Your customer might be looking at a new release Android on a tech website. They then go on to their Facebook, have a casual scroll and  they notice an ad for a phone that they were checking out on your previously visited website. Genius, right?

Let’s have a look at some common examples that you will likely recognise:

• Search engine advertising – Think Google Ads which targets users based on their search. When a user searches on Google, Google uses cookies to track their search history and behaviour. This information is used to display relevant ads to the user based on their search terms, interests, and other factors.‍
• Social media advertising – Meta (Facebook & Instagram), for example, hold a lot of demographic and behavioural information about it’s users and uses this information to find the right customer. Meta uses cookies to track a user's browsing behavior on their platform and other websites. This information is used to build a profile of the user's interests, likes, dislikes, and demographics. Based on this information, Meta shows ads that are more relevant to the user.‍
• Behavioural advertising with the pixels – Advertisers use pixels to track user behaviour across websites and build a profile of their interests and preferences. This information is used to show targeted ads to users based on their behaviour, such as retargeting users who have visited a website or creating lookalike audiences based on user profiles. A lot of sites will use past purchasing information to decide what to show their users next. 

So what are the benefits?

• The ability to create strong brand awareness amongst your target audience(s).
• Increasing engagement with your audience.
• You can customise your ads focusing on numerous target audiences and products at the same time.
• An increased relevance to the audience. You see, the ads are based on the audience’s interests and behavior, which means that they can lead to higher engagement rates and better user experiences.
• More sales. Targeted ads are shown to users who are more likely to be interested in the product or service being advertised.
• Saving money. Advertisers can target specific audiences and avoid wasting ad spend on users who are unlikely to be interested.
• Better performing ads. Social media optimises their campaigns for better performance because they have a tonne of data on user behavior and preferences to refine their targeting and ad creative.

Each platform offers extensive targeting options, and there is so much we can do! We’ll go deeper in future blog posts.

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Social Media Marketing 

Now targeted ads certainly come into this area, however, social media marketing is so much more than paid ads.

Having an organic social media strategy means creating content – whether it be written, video, visual or audio – that provides value for your current and potential customers. These pieces of content aren’t created as a sales pitch, but they are there to create and nurture a relationship (preferably a long-term one). This could include blogs, memes, how-to videos etc.

The most important thing is that each piece of content is personalised and tailored in a way that shows that the organisation knows who their audience is (think of creating customer personas) and knows what makes them tick. 

The most important piece of advice? Keep up with the trends. Know what’s working and what isn’t. For example, in 2023 video marketers realised that the best way to connect - is to keep it short.

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Targeted Emails

Sending one email with the same message to every customer just isn’t enough. You want to ensure that your emails make an impact and to do that you need to tailor individual messages that stand out and speak to each target audience.

Ensure that you are gaining information from your audience.

How can you gain further insights? Collect information when new customers subscribe and encourage them to update their marketing preferences (a small incentive goes a long way).

Always keep it relevant. You can segment your customers based on simple demographics such as age and gender or you can delve deeper into behavioural past purchases. When you receive an email that speaks to you, you’re more likely to click and convert. 

It’s a no brainer. 

If the email aligns with their needs (or more likely their wants) and if they provide value, you’ll reap the benefit.

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Product Recommendations 

Product recommendations are when products are suggested to a customer on your site, app or email. Data such as demographics, customer attributes, search behaviour or the situational context is used. 

Now this particular form of personalisation is particularly useful (and could now be considered as a must) in e-commerce when you have a diverse range of products. It makes complete sense that when I’m buying that new phone, I’m then highly likely to buy a suggested case to protect it. 

It’s an upsell, yes. But also makes your customer’s life a LOT easier. 

There’s no doubt that personalisation is the future of marketing. There are a myriad of personalisation options to be explored, beyond targeted ads, social media marketing and product recommendations. Remember that the most important factor is that you choose the right options for your organisation and ensure that all communications are integrated and seamless.

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If you want to explore personalisation and how we can help you implement it within your customer and employee experience, book a discovery call with our team.