5 tips for better personalization

First, compile the data

“You have to personalize before you can hyper-personalize, so start with gathering personal customer data from your own records, compiling information like names, addresses, geographical regions and buying history,” said Sandra Peterson, VP of Marketing, Absolutdata. “Add browsing data from your website. It’s a good idea to create a sign-up option for customers to keep basic contact information current and get data such as demographics and interests. Also combine data analysis and social listening data, which can include social media remarks, profiles and data from other online interactions.”

Second, simplified segmentation

“Dividing customers by age groups and gender is a good beginning segmentation strategy since these categories tend to be significant in predicting buying behavior. Next, take a closer look at purchasing history and make commonsense decisions based on what customers have bought in the past. For example, if you’re managing a hospitality campaign and offering a luxury vacation, you might consider excluding customers who have focused on budget accommodations in all past interactions,” said Peterson.

Third, escalate personalization

“Once you’ve segmented your audience by interests, age group and gender, you can ramp up your personalization efforts by moving beyond basic purchasing information,” said Peterson. “Incorporate data from on-website and in-app activity and leverage it for messaging, such as reminders when a customer has left an item in a shopping cart — a technique retailers like Amazon have used to excellent effect. You can also include outreach focused on items a customer has recently viewed and products or services purchased by people with similar interests.”

Fourth, use effective marketing software

“Few marketing organizations have the bandwidth to parse huge datasets for customer insights. Luckily, that’s not necessary today — marketing software can process data, taking into account details at an extremely granular level. But that’s not the only benefit of using an effective marketing software solution: It can also provide a seamless customer experience across all channels your customers use, optimize ecommerce performance, improve demand generation and recommend content for even greater personalization,” said Peterson.

Fifth, incorporate contextual data

“As a last step, zoom out and place the customer into a broader context. This requires widening the focus from the individual to take into account factors like location and time. For example, if you are selling snow tires, send offers to customers in areas that are experiencing heavy snowfall — even if those customers have no history of buying or viewing winter automotive supplies. Context can also include the time of day, as in sending breakfast sandwich offers via text or social media to customers during their morning commute,” said Peterson.