Home Articles Here are key personalisation tactics to improve customer engagements

Here are key personalisation tactics to improve customer engagements

0

Customers today are faced with an overwhelming number of choices in everything they do. The digitisation of everything has led to consumers becoming blind to mass marketing.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to engage in meaningful conversations with them. To make yourself heard, you need to target customers with smart, data-driven automation.

Whether you’re B2C or B2B, the challenges being faced are the same. You need to make sure you’re getting the right message to the right person, at the right time, through the right channel.

Personalisation is key. With more and more channels emerging, you now have countless ways to reach your customers. At the same time, customers are far too savvy to just be blasted with generic content and doing so can negatively affect your brand’s reputation.

80% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that recognise, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations.

Customers want to feel valued; to have a unique experience with you. They want to feel as though you invest as much time and money in them, as they do in you.

As marketers, we know it sounds daunting. A lack of time and resource can prevent even the best conceived strategies from coming to fruition. I’ve outlined quick tactics proven to target your customers more efficiently and effectively, allowing you to start small and scale quickly.

Which pre-sales personalisation tactics should you know?

Get to know your customer

You need to know your customers well to be able to give them what they want. After all, there’s no point sending someone your latest range of dog toys if they don’t have a pet.

Customers’ changing expectations of brands means this is more important than ever – and there’s no better time to get to know them than when you first meet.

Setting up a preference centre is the best way to collect and manage the information you need to target customers. By getting prospects and customers to hand over their interests, they’re giving you a treasure trove of data to help keep your emails and other communications super-relevant.

Dynamic, personalised content has proven to drive up sales, opens and click-through rates. Nearly 77% of modern consumers expect companies to use their profile to personalise marketing emails. They prefer it, so utilise it!

Segmentation, segmentation, segmentation

Segmentation is key to email marketing success. Email campaigns that use segmentation typically enjoy a 50% higher click rate. It helps us deliver the right message to the right person.

Although segmentation is not a new tactic, our latest Hitting the Mark 2019 report found that many brands are still not even employing basic segmentation tactics.

If, as marketers, we really want to improve the effectiveness of our targeting, we need to think beyond basic gender or location-based segmentation. The higher the quality of the data you collect on your customers, the better your segments will be.

Extend your reach

Email is the cornerstone of any marketing strategy, but not everyone will be responsive to it. While marketers might consider inactive contacts as good as lost, it’s not the case. Explore other channels.

Research has shown that 90% of text messages will be read within three minutes, which makes it a great channel for meaningful engagements. Similarly, Facebook users currently spend on average 50 minutes a day on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms.

An easy automation program is all you’ll need to target this pool of contacts unreachable on email. However, it’s important not to blast them with useless content that will push them further away from your brand. Try enticing them in with a unique coupon code or free delivery to encourage a conversion.

These are also great channels for transactional communications. Sending order confirmations or time sensitive event notifications are effective ways of reminding customers that you’re around and thinking of them.

Bring them back into the fold

Re-targeting someone who’s not converted is a smart tactic in the digital age. Why? Because you’re going after contacts who’ve already expressed an interest in your brand or products but have yet to make a purchase.

With these people, half the battle is over – they know who you are, and they know you’ve got what they want. Websites alone have an average conversion rate of 2%. Re-targeting enables brands to make a second bid to those 98% of users who expressed an interest but didn’t purchase.

Targeting the right people through relevant ads is an effective way of converting lapsed web traffic back into sales. Website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert.

All you need to do is identify the hot leads who’ve paid your website a visit and push them to make a purchase.

Now, what post-sale personalisation tactics should you employ?

Don’t be the brand that thinks the idea of post-purchase customer engagement is just the automatic emailing of a receipt.

Post-purchase communication is an essential part of any retailer’s marketing and customer retention strategy.

Understanding the psychology behind customer behaviour can reveal important opportunities within the customer journey. Marketers can use this information to increase the levels of customer retention, leading to a growth in brand advocates and ROI.

The key time to improve your customer experience and relationship is immediately after his or her first purchase – while the brand is at the forefront of their mind.

To encourage this relationship, it’s important to communicate with customers regularly. Curate messages that have a personalised tone, prompting them to engage with you.

There’s no better time to talk to and engage with a customer than after they’ve demonstrated they’re willing to trust you. Here are my top tips!

Don’t forget your manners and show that you care

Say ‘thank you.’ These two little words can really make an impact on your customer’s post-purchase experience.

How-to guides

You want to ensure that your customer enjoys their purchase; a simple ‘how-to’ guide can realise this and reduces the risk of returns from frustrated customers.

This can be done in a variety of ways: you could provide an infographic in your email, embed a video tutorial, or include a link which will take them to a dedicated page on your website.

Product care tips

Like the above, the intention here is to ensure your customer is getting value from the product they’ve ordered and to encourage them to engage with their purchase.

Help them maximise the product lifecycle with an email containing lots of product care tips.

Product feedback

A successful way to improve customer experience is to ask for feedback from your customers on the products they’ve purchased.

Bear in mind that the time frame around reviews will differ according to what type of product they’ve purchased.

Telling your recipients how their feedback will influence the products or services you offer will help to increase your response rates.

Replenishment reminders

Replenishment emails are automated emails that are sent to customers when their product is about to run out, so they can re-order.

They’re useful for all sorts of products; makeup, pet food, skincare, food and health products. It doesn’t take much effort to create a replenishment reminder and they can be sent automatically with little management.

This simple attention to detail can really improve the customer experience. As a brand that offers expediency, your customers will view you as both dependable and trustworthy.

Bring back lapsed customers

Another excellent example of post-purchase engagement is the win-back email. You might, for example, send to someone who’s made a certain number of purchases in the past, yet hasn’t placed an order in the last six months.

This will enable you to target these customers with an email containing a voucher or discount code.

More engagement ideas

Keep your customers engaged, but be careful not to make your post-purchase emails too pushy – customers may not be ready to buy from you again just yet.

Instead, look for ways to keep them engaged. Here are some effective ways to guarantee engagement:

  • Invite them to follow you on social media
  • Tempt them with tailored product recommendations
  • Invite these contacts to sign up to receive your email newsletter for special offers
  • Set up a loyalty program and invite them to join
  • Offer an incentive to ask them to share your brand with their friends
  • Send a discount code for their next purchase

Consider SMS

You might think SMS marketing is just a great way to get those sales in. It’s also a proven way to follow up and communicate with your customers after their purchase. Delivering relevant content is exactly how you get them to repeat their custom.

It’s this personal, friendly, and yet professional service which builds relationships and keeps customers from lapsing.

For more inspiration on how to create meaningful, long-lasting customer engagements, download the dotdigital whitepaper: Meeting the modern customer’s expectations.

Aparna Gray is Head of Marketing, dotdigital, APAC and has more than 19 years’ experience in the marketing, public relations and communications field, with roles spanning across Australia, UK, China and Silicon Valley. Dotdigital will be exhibiting at Australia’s upcoming leading ecommerce event, Online Retailer Expo and Conference (July 24-25), is coming up. Visitors will learn cutting-edge business insights, the latest trends.