In a world where every customer is different, personalisation has become the key to success for e-commerce brands. Personalisation goes beyond using customers’ names in marketing campaigns or providing custom products to individual customers. Today, it’s about giving customers what they want when they want it and how they want it by making their experience as personalised as possible from start to finish. With consumers expecting more personalised experiences than ever before, e-commerce retailers inevitably turn towards personalisation strategies like social media integrations and dynamic product recommendations that generate unique content on each page view.
What is personalisation?
Personalisation is one of the most powerful tools marketers have at their disposal. The concept of personalisation, in marketing terms, pertains to tailoring a brand’s message and content for an individual customer or business lead based on information they provide about themselves. This includes everything from using a person’s name when addressing them to making specific product recommendations tailored specifically for what they say they’re looking for.
Personalisation is more than just a way to make your brand stand out from the competition. It’s an essential marketing tool that gives you access to data about how customers react to different products, which can help inform decisions about what content they should see going forward.
Personalisation in e-commerce
For personalisation in e-commerce to be effective, your company needs a more extensive database of information on each customer. You need to know who each customer is and the exact things they like and want. This makes personalising campaigns much easier. Plus, it’s more likely that people will respond better when their preferences are taken into account!
Marketing mix
The marketing mix has consisted of four main elements since 1963.
- Product (the tangible item or service);
- Price (what someone pays for the product);
- Promotion (advertising);
- Place (where the product is located).
With personalisation, it becomes a fifth element – time. To have an effective marketing mix when using personalisation in e-commerce, you must ensure that all five elements are present and working together harmoniously!
Product.
The company should make sure they’re selling products their customers want at prices appropriate for each customer’s budget. Also, it’s vital to promote these offers on platforms where their target audience spends most of its time online. This promotion can take many forms, including email campaigns or banner ads on websites like Facebook and Instagram. They may consider adding items frequently purchased by people who visit specific pages as suggestions on those same pages, so visitors don’t have to search for them.
Price.
Sometimes prices need to be increased to make a profit. Also, when the product is scarce usually lowering prices will increase sales volume and allow you to get more customers who may not have been able to afford your products before. You’ll also want to promote these discounts on social media sites like Facebook; here people are already spending their time looking at ads!
Promotion.
Promotion can take many forms, including advertising campaigns that use social media channels like Facebook or email marketing messages sent out by companies themselves. They might also offer free shipping promotions, which will increase customer satisfaction while also increasing revenue from increased sales volume.
Place.
The company should consider how many of its potential customers’ locations they can service; whether through shipping costs or special offers for local pickups. They may even want some items delivered straight from their warehouses if that makes sense with their supply chain and marketing plan. So, there aren’t any delays in getting the goods out into the public eye.
Time.
The fifth element to consider is the time that each item will be available. This can affect engagement rates and customer satisfaction with a company if they can get their items delivered on-demand. This could also increase demand if delivered within specific delivery deadlines.
Why should e-commerce businesses care about personalisation?
- Personalised marketing campaigns produce a higher response than non-personalised ones.
- Increased conversion rates can be achieved with personalisation.
- Higher customer lifetime value and revenue per user due to increased repeat purchases.
- Personalised content also attracts more media attention.
- Customer satisfaction is higher when personalisation is applied.
- Personalisation makes the customer feel valued.
- Personalised marketing campaigns are more enjoyable.
How to create a personalised experience?
A personalised experience is all about user data, feedback, and requests. It’s important to remember that there are different types of personalisation:
Offline personalisation – e.g., shoe stores could make sure they have the right size for you in stock by monitoring your past purchases with them.
Online personalisation – e.g., an online clothing store might notice what products you’ve looked at before and show more related items in their email newsletters or on product pages.
Personalisation in e-commerce aims not just to make customers feel like we’re listening but also to help them find things more easily. For example, people who buy running shoes often will see ads for these when browsing in unrelated websites. The reason being – they are tagged as interested in running shoes.
Steps how to start:
First, personalise your site to known customer segments. If you have a B2B business or sell more than one type of product, personalise content for the segment that’s shown the most interest in each topic. For example, if someone spends much time on pages about running shoes but also reads articles about nutrition.
Second, use data from third-party sources like Google Analytics and Facebook pixel tags to help personalise marketing campaigns by understanding which customers are likely buyers. For example, people who visit both pages and products could be targeted with an email newsletter highlighting new arrivals without sending it to those who only read blog posts.
Third, personalise the shopping experience to meet customers’ needs. For example, if a customer started looking at running shoes but ended up buying a coat on your website, you could show them coats next time they visit the site.
Examples of personalisation
Customers are beginning to demand personalised experiences from all companies, not just online retailers. This has caused many businesses to shift their focus on personalising more than ever before. Even offline brands like Zara have started implementing personalisation into their business practices. The following examples will show how customers feel when they’re given what they want:
Example One: Netflix calculated that by using machine learning algorithms, they could improve user experience by 20%. These algorithms helped predict which movie would be best for each user based on their preferences.
Example Two: Nike has an AI that designs personalised trainers for people based on a questionnaire about themselves and what type of sport or exercise activity they participate in most often.
There are many other examples of how personalisation in e-commerce is transforming the way customers interact with businesses. From being able to email customer service while you’re shopping online at Levi’s to picking your toppings when ordering pizza instead of choosing from set options like cheese or pepperoni. It seems as if every industry is experimenting with some personalisation these days!
Companies have been successful so far by implementing personalisation into both offline experiences and online interactions. But just because there haven’t been any significant failures doesn’t mean we should forget about the potential for costly mistakes.
However, you should consider personalisation a long-term investment in customer satisfaction and loyalty rather than an immediate profit generator. So, while it might not pay off straight away (or ever), there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that personalisation can have a significant impact on getting more customers into your business.
Challenges you might face:
– You might not be able to personalise every product or service you can offer. If it is impossible, the customer will see that, and they may lose faith in your company because of this lack of diversity amongst products.
– Implementing a personalisation strategy requires an upfront investment, which means you need more money than usual upfront. So, if there are any sales setbacks, these will result in financial losses for as long as changes could be made, or the investments could start paying off again. Still, by then, it may already have been too late.
– Many people don’t want their data shared with companies without knowing what is happening with their information and who has access to it. Some customers even worry about third parties with access to their data.
– However, some people are open about sharing their information for the sake of convenience since they may not have time to search through each product’s reviews. Some clients may think about it as a way that companies use to manipulate customers into spending more money on products and services or paying more than they should. The reason – the customer did not research beforehand.
– There could be issues arising when personalisation is being poorly applied. This could lead to discrimination, profiling, and invasion of privacy.
– Many customers are unaware that personalisation is happening and how it affects the personal experience of shopping with a site.
So,
There’s a lot to think about when implementing personalisation in e-commerce. However, the benefits of using this strategy are well worth it. Is your store or site already taking advantage of these strategies? If not, you might want to take another look at how you can implement them for better customer engagement and increased sales. We have some great tips to start understanding all the ins and outs of making an effective digital marketing plan. Such plan accounts for what customers need from their shopping experience instead of just guessing.
