Today’s consumers expect a personalized experience during their shopping time. An effective personalization strategy with right elements can help organizations gain a competitive advantage.
McKinsey research shows that personalized experiences accelerate customer loyalty and business bottom line.
It is evident that personalization can enhance customer experience.
Most of the customers are likely to shop with brands that offer personalized experiences. Before going further, we should understand what a personalized experience will look like.
Let’s investigate what personalization means to your business and the benefits of it.
Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all marketing strategies and sales tactics. Although emails and text messages still remain as the best direct communication options, the deluge of such messages is often considered spam. Now the explosion of digital channels gives brands the opportunity to provide a personal connection to their consumers.
Targeted communication
Sending direct communication that is personalized to each user or to user segments (customers with same interests) is one of the finest means of personalized customer communication. Customer data plays a huge role here. Data from customer transactions, purchase history, personal touch points, social media and other sources are organized to understand more about customers.
Use a customer data platform (CDP) to collect and organize customer data from various data sources. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is a proven Customer Data Platform that is used by leading organizations to create a centralized customer database
Some of the targeted digital communication methods are as follows
Emails, push notifications and SMS: You can set personalized message to each customer based on their preference, purchase history and so. This is a great means to collect information about the customer
Web banners: Target customers through personalized web banners and other forms of paid ads that display product recommendations based on customer purchase history and search. This increases the likelihood of conversion.
Landing pages: Landing pages are one of the best means to attract customers. You can direct users to landing page after they click a particular link in the email or click an ad. You can create numerous landing pages for distinct customer segments. This increases the chance that they will find the content enough to engage with the page and thus the brand.
Recommendations and customization
Customers actually prefer to purchase from a retailer that recommends product options based on their previous purchase history. Offering recommendations helps to attract more customers. Leading organizations worldwide employ world-class artificial intelligence (AI) to provide recommendations. This improves personalized customer experiences.
Famous streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix and others are using their own AI algorithms for better customer engagement. Likewise, broadcasters like BBC and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) are also using AI to engage with their viewers through personalized content
Using Microsoft AI, enterprises can provide personalized recommendations for a specific user based on their interactions and behavior. Personalized recommendations increases up-sell and cross-sell opportunities and customer engagement.
Highlighting the customer
Marketing is more than just promoting. It is important to give prominence to individual customer. Having in-depth understanding about your customer aids in building connection and loyalty. More than 60% of customers prefer to purchase from an organizations that knows their purchase history. The purchase history is the information about the products they bought, how they used it, payment details and so.
Knowing customer history helps you target individual customer with content that is relevant to them. You can send out personalized emails stating the purchases they have made and the recommended products. Personalized messages via SMS, emails or text make customers feel valued by you. This helps to identify growth opportunities and thereby the bottom line.
Situation based personalization
Customer data points are the crucial data sources. Now technology has access to these customer data points like never before. Data from the customer data points is a greater resource to deliver personalization based on customer’s location. How can you achieve this? You can collect geographic, demographic and behavioral data using CDP (customer data platform) to personalize customer engagement.
You can suggest personalized offerings and target customers based on their geographic, behavioral and demographic information. So customers who need your particular products can see the relevant ads.
The best way to collect the geographic, behavioral and demographic data is to use Microsoft Customer Data Platform, Dynamics 365 Insights.
What are the benefits of achieving a personalized experience?
In a survey conducted by Harvard Business Review Survey, most of the respondents said that personalization had a greater impact on the business revenue.
More than revenue, personalization helps to maximize sales growth, increase customer lifetime value and customer engagement
The benefits of personalization is clear, so it requires a good strategy and system to get things right. The next step for you is to adopt right system to achieve personalization.
How you can achieve personalization?
- Take advantage of your customer data from all existing sources
- Deploy a reliable Customer Relationship Management System like Dynamics 365
- Adopt omnichannel solution
How LITS SERVICES can help?
For organizations looking to strengthen their personalization approach, LITS SERVICES can help. We are gold-certified Microsoft partner with years of experience in transforming enterprises using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, ERP, Customer Data Platform. Microsoft Platform and more.
We are the recognized Microsoft Dynamics 365 Partner in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kenya, Germany, Canada, Pakistan, and India.