![Dear [INSERT FIRST NAME], are you getting personal with your marketing?](images/loader.gif)
Dear [INSERT FIRST NAME], are you getting personal with your marketing?
Commentary by Andrew Saville, Experian Marketing Services UK
Personalisation is an increasingly important tactic for marketers as we become more and more focused on providing our customers with relevant and interesting customer journeys. This may seem complex; customer-centred engagement demands that you know who your customers are, what motivates them and the ways they like to interact with your brand. To demonstrate what simplicity looks like for your customers – we’d like to introduce you to Lucy’s story.
Personalisation is one of the most frequently discussed practices in our industry. However, it’s not a particularly revolutionary concept either. That said, as with many things, the potential of personalisation increases exponentially when you apply it to digital marketing. This is because the ability to personalise relies on two things; the amount of information available and the ability to deliver a tailored experience… both things that we know the digital environment more than caters for. Our recent webinar may be of interest:
Personalisation in Retail Marketing’ Cool or Creepy? : 29 / 10 / 15
Mark Lindsay, Director of Strategic Client Development, will be exploring where the line is between ‘cool’ and ‘creepy’, based on our interesting survey results. The webinar team will also provide examples of personalisation in the real world and practical tips on how to get it right. REGISTER HERE
With the sophistication of online intelligence available and the sheer amount of data the average consumer is producing on an everyday basis (how many times a day do you check your emails, browse the web on your phone, play with apps or quickly scan social media?) it’s not surprising that these days there’s a great deal more to personalisation than simply adding a first name at the top of a letter.
Personalisation is now about providing consumers with as smooth an experience as possible. Using insights to understand propensity and likes and dislikes based on the individual’s known preferences (whether that’s communication method, tone of voice or likely product choice) content and messaging can be tailored to make it as easy and painless as possible for the consumer.
Essentially, when you think of it like this it’s quite easy to consider personalisation as another way of attempting the Holy Grail of marketing – putting the right offer in front of the right person, at the right time.
However there are challenges in getting it right. Not only is it a balance between analytics, actionable insight, automation and CRM, there’s the logistics of managing more creative and content assets. There are also issues about how personalised brands should make their marketing and whether there’s a line between being helpful and, well… a bit creepy.
Personalisation should only go as far as helping customers, and brands should stay away from personalising for the sake of it. Just because there’s a fancy new tool or a technique doesn’t mean it’s right for every brand to use.
What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below – I’ll do my best to respond.
