Trend Towards Personalization Accelerates

Most marketing campaigns aim to target specific segments of potential customers – obviously the ones most likely to buy the product or service in question. But many traditional and digital marketing techniques have been fairly blunt instruments, making it difficult to address specific consumers – and make them feel special.

Now, new methods of personalizing marketing outreach are trying to change that, and many are being adopted quickly by companies seeking an edge over their rivals.

The biggest players are able to use the mountains of data they have to do this. For instance, Amazon curates lists of recommended products based on browsing and purchase history, and other variables. What is more, some companies have found ways to send more personalized thank you messages to their customers post-purchase, either by e-mail or regular mail.  

Being able to tailor communication with customers at a personal level is a huge advantage for the companies that are able to do it. It is a way to build much stronger relationships with people and give them exactly what they want, or even extrapolate other data to tell them what they want before they know it themselves.

Done in the right way it is also a way to maximize the effectiveness of the advertising spend. That’s because it allows companies to get their message in front of a customer base that’s most likely to make a purchase– those who are already familiar with the business and have a clear understanding of its value proposition.

It’s an obvious strategy in the abstract. But it is of course easier said than done. For all companies, big or small, the key to being able to make it work is recording as much information as possible about the ways customers interact with the company’s products, brand, and marketing campaigns.

The more data a company possesses, the more easily it can create campaigns based on customer attributes and past behavior. One approach is to cross-reference sales data with information from digital marketing campaigns and website traffic.

Armed with this kind of information, the company can then send specifically tailored offers to individual customers that have a much better chance of hitting their mark – because they are based on the tastes and preferences that the customer has already shown.

In the same way, rather than employing one-size-fits-all messaging, different messaging can be developed for a greater variety of different types of customers. In some cases, even messaging can be completely personalized based on the capacity and resources of the company.

The trend toward personalization is only going to increase. Right now, it works well either for very big but extremely sophisticated companies like Amazon; or for small companies whose customer base is limited enough in size for them to know well.

It’s many of those in the middle that still need to catch up.