“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” – Seth Godin
Seth Godin, the marketing guru, sums up why businesses need personalization. 96% of marketers believe that personalization helps improve audience engagement. In the year 2015-17, companies observed an increase in engagement and sales due to personalized marketing.
According to a survey by Accenture, 56% of the consumers said they would buy from a company that recognizes them by their name (Emails with customer names or Text Messages with it). Personalized marketing, as you see in these statistics, has aced the litmus tests to bring in better engagements and ROI.
2018 will be the year; marketers will play around with this strategy, to influence their other marketing strategies and zero down on the best practices of marketing with customization that will work wonders for the brands. In simple words, personalized marketing will rule in 2018.
What Is Personalized Marketing?
Personalized marketing, in a nutshell, is a strategy, based on data analytics. Which means, tailoring campaigns with customized content, design, and approach, for a specific segment of the audience. Email marketing, Website/Design Strategy, Content marketing and Digital marketing are the main fortes, where personalized marketing is diligently incorporated. For one, personalized marketing does not mean, that individual marketing campaigns need to be created. Instead, the common practice now is, to create a single ‘customer persona,’ wherein similar audiences, based on demographics, behaviors are grouped and treated as a single customer. To be precise, one customer persona can have millions of customers grouped.
Personalized Marketing Benefits
Better and a deeper connection with the audience: When the audience relates to your content, design or product better, the possibility of sales becomes higher
Creates not just Loyal Customers but Evangelists: Personalized marketing creates an impact on your audience.
Consistency across Channels: A brand truly wins, when the offline store can be related to their online website and social media channels.
Drives Good Numbers on the ROI: 65% of the marketers reported an increase in conversion rates when they built personalized marketing strategies across channels.
Why Is Personalized Marketing Here To Stay?
Market researcher, Gartner published a statistic in 2015 that created ripples in the marketing industry: Companies that have ‘fully invested in all types of personalization’ will outrun others by 20% in 2018. 49% of the B2B companies find personalization, effective in their marketing outreach campaigns.
The critics may counter that personalization is part of any marketing strategy for quite some years now, then why will personalization rule 2018? Because it is not the year of introduction to personalized marketing, but the year, wherein, the maximum number of companies will embrace it and innovate with it. Personalized marketing tools also play a strong role in helping marketers, incorporate customization on various levels of communications and marketing.
The following trends in customization that proves why personalized marketing will rule 2018:
Personalized content that’s relevant will drive engagement
Content Marketing is the buzzword for 2018. The innovation in technique and presentation of the content created is what will make all the difference to consumers and marketers alike. A study by Janrain showed that 73% of consumers are fed up with irrelevant content. Personalized content for emails, websites, and social media, showed better results as compared to ‘one-size’ fit all kind of content. The audience not only engaged better, but it also influenced sales.
Personal marketing Automation Tools
Large retailers like Amazon are using automation tools to execute their personalized marketing strategies. May it be for emails, personalized product recommendations or targeting based on behavior. The key to the success of automation tools is data analytics. Companies that incorporate automation saw a 53% higher conversion rates. From sending cart-drop, post-purchase emails to product recommendations, personalized marketing had a significant effect on the revenue generated. Marketing automation to implement personalization is a trend that is catching up, even among smaller retailers.
The Right Use of Personalized Marketing
Though more than 96% of the marketers believe personalization is good for business, only 45% of them said they are using personalization in the right way. 2018 will see many companies discovering the right way to include personalization in their marketing strategies based on data sciences. Personalization, like any other marketing strategy, needs to be done in the right way and the right amount. The audience needs to connect with the brand and not feel that, they are just one in a million getting the same email, with just their name in it. 2018 will see a lot of marketers experimenting with A/B testing on website UI to Social media campaigns, to find the personalization that works for the audience and the brand too.
Personalized Digital Reach Out Based Solely on Data
Google and social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, allow you to remarket to the audience, who have visited your website.
Personalized marketing will rule in 2018, mainly in the email marketing and mobile marketing sector. This strategy will help focus more on the existing customers and build new customers, based on existing ones. Marketers have to date, concentrated on acquiring new customers only, then working with existing customers. Returning customers are said to be 70% more likely of purchase as compared to new customers. So it only makes sense that you concentrate on them more and build more evangelists who can bring you, new customers. Personalization is one of the best ways, for brands to appear more human. It will also make the interactions between brands and customers, to be less robotic and to make better sense.
Are you planning to embrace personalized marketing in 2018?
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