Technology usually comes with a cold, disconnected connotation…but in today’s digital age, we’re more connected than ever. Over time you’ve subconsciously revealed information about yourself; you are checking in at your favorite restaurants, tagging your favorite brewery, or completing product surveys for a 10% off coupon. From big box stores to Joe’s Hardware down the street, data is collected with every transaction and used to help build a relationship between you and your favorite brands.
As a business, collecting this information is a vital piece of the digital marketing puzzle. Yes, the data is great for remembering customer birthdays and throwing a coupon their way now and again, but are you also using your customer’s data to deliver strategic solutions to their problems? Happy birthday coupons are not enough; your customers crave relationships. They don’t want to just be spoken to, they want their trusted brands to deliver relevant information when they need it most! Personalized marketing leverages data with digital marketing platforms to help deliver individualized messaging, offers, and product recommendations.
How to Personalize Your Marketing
Thanks to technology, delivering meaningful content is easier than you may think. If you’re picturing massive spreadsheets full of your customer’s personal data and hundreds of individual emails, pump the breaks. Customer data can instead easily be collected by contact forms and stored in your email service provider. Product surveys, another valuable form of customer data collection, can be added to your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) follow-up. Sometimes all you need to do to collect data on your customers is simply listen and observe them on social media and through conversations.
Call Your Customers By Their Name
This is one of the easiest ways to personalize your marketing efforts. In email marketing, be sure to use smart fields to display your customer’s name, not just in the opening of the email but throughout the copy. Does your website host user accounts? Make sure their account welcomes your customer by name with each sign-in. It’s important to show your brand recognizes each individual for who they are and not as another faceless number purchasing a product.
Use Your Customers’ Language
When developing your personas, discover and speak in your customer’s language. Hone in on words and phrases that attract your customer in product descriptions, social media captions, and through more traditional advertising like print. You may call your product “slippers,” but your ideal client may refer to them as “house shoes.” Whether you’re delivering a product or service, if you don’t speak to your customer in their language, your message is less relatable, leading to a decrease in trust.
Stick To Customer Preferences
When developing lead funnels and customer tracks, you need to take a walk in your customers’ shoes. If I’m contacting you about a new roof, I don’t want to receive an email about types of flooring. By using dynamic content, you leverage your customers’ information with your brand’s services, helping to deliver relevant information centered around their preferences. Ever see the line “additional blogs you may like” or “additional products you may find of interest”? That’s dynamic content! GreenCup Digital likes to utilize dynamic content for our customers, too. That’s why we’ve provided you, a person who obviously enjoys reading about digital marketing, with additional digital marketing articles like the ones suggested below. We like to lead by example!
Where to Personalize Your Marketing
Each of these personalized marketing strategies is easy to implement in theory, but where do you physically begin tweaking your efforts to make the most impact? Start by taking a hard look at your buyers’ journey through your digital presence. Identify the common touchpoints your customer has with your brand and explore ways to make those moments even more personalized.
Copy
The copy surrounding your products and services is much more than a 140 character description. This is your chance to attract, engage, and relate with your audience! Remember to talk to your ideal customer, not at them, and consistently deliver a solution. Using your customer’s language in blog posts, on service pages, and creatively in ad campaigns is a great way to personalize your marketing efforts and boost engagement.
Customizing your emails to match your recipients’ personalities is another great way to build relationships with customers. While email is heavily copy-based, don’t rule out images and call-to-actions. It’s also important to consider email segments and timing. Does your ideal customer work 9-5? Make sure you’re sending email campaigns at optimal times of engagement. This is where A/B testing can help you refine your email marketing strategy while discovering what personalized attributes are getting the most click-through.
Offers & Recomendations
One of the most common ways to engage with customer preferences is through dynamic offers and recommendations. A great example of this is the Meijers Mperks program. Not only does this personalized marketing strategy help save on your grocery bill, but soon you’ll receive personalized coupons in the mail based on the products you buy most often. By monitoring your customer’s purchase history, you can keep them coming back with offers on their favorite products.
Customer Support
As a service-based business, one of your most impactful features is your customer support! The way you talk to your potential client before and after a sale is crucial to establishing referral momentum for the future. Seek to understand your customers and relate to them on a personal level to enhance your resolution capabilities and keep them coming your way for solutions.
Take your customer solution mentality one step further by building out a public resource library filled with helpful content and free tips! The less time a client needs to dedicate to unriddling a service or product, the quicker they can solve their problem. Consider developing quick start guides or free downloads to support your clients along their journey with your brand.
Build Meaningful Relationships
As technology continues to fast-track personalized marketing, it’s time to review your strategy to ensure your business is doing everything it can to build meaningful relationships. It pays to understand your target audience and strategize the digital marketing platforms you use to achieve your business goals. Need help personalizing your digital marketing? Discover how GreenCup Digital partnered with Boulder Longevity Institue to maximize their customer relationships. We can do the same for you! Reach out to us here to experience how with GreenCup Digital, personalized, professional relationships come standard with our digital marketing services.
