1. Save money through intelligent personalization:
Personalization is nothing new. However, intelligent personalization is still a new concept to many brands. Just including ‘Dear Rebecca’ in a retailer’s marketing email won’t cut it in 2016 I’m afraid. Presenting customers with irrelevant offers either through email, online or via mobile is a big no-no and is also very frustrating (trust me, I know).
So, how do you ensure you leave minimal and incorrect personalization in the past, and ensure 2016 is the year you become your customers’ best friend? It’s time to assess your current personalization software provider. If you are only receiving the most basic functionality - this may have been suitable 12 months ago, but not today – it’s probably time to switch vendors. With an improved personalization platform you can go from just being on a first name basis with your customers, to being their favorite brand.
I’m talking about personalization that takes into account location, weather, age, stock levels, browsing history, brand affinity and more. Emails that personalize on open, using real-time data to ensure your customers never receive promotions for out of stock items. Once this is implemented you can stop wasting money through irrelevant offers and customer dissatisfaction and starting increasing ROI by increasing click-through rates, boosting conversions and improving customer retention.
2. Quit insensitive retargeting:
We’ve all been there. You visit a site once, in search for a Christmas gift for your 16-year-old cousin, (albeit unsuccessfully) then for the remainder of your online shopping journey you’re bombarded with digital advertising banners. Now, this wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the products being presented to you were at all relevant. Imagine you are leaving a physical store, and the sales person comes running out, shouting and waving random products in front of your face. This wouldn’t be acceptable, and neither is its online equivalent. It is this type of insensitive retargeting that can annoy customers, and quite frankly, gives personalization a bad name.
In order to implement successful retargeting, marketers need to incorporate not only customer browsing data, but also predictive and behavioral analytics.
Of course, this can only be done with an intelligent personalization and insights engine. One which learns customers preferences in real-time and takes big data from multiple sources – marry these together and you have more exciting, better-targeted campaigns. (And no annoyed customers).
3. Make contextualization a priority, not an option:
In my opinion, 2016 is the year of contextualization. Move over content… context is now king! Having the right customer data is one thing, but knowing exactly when and where to use it is the key.
Imagine a young woman on holiday, she’s in Scotland looking for somewhere local to eat and it’s raining. She gets a push notification to her mobile offering her a half price dinner at a restaurant just around the corner. Perfect! Only a fully contextual marketing engine can galvanize the full scope of a customer’s interactions and situation in order to produce highly personalized and relevant messaging such as this. And companies who are already doing this type of contextual marketing are considered innovators.
Earlier this year, Forrester Research, Inc. revealed their ‘Real-Time Interaction Management’ Wave report, outlining Leaders, Strong Performers and Risky Bets within the industry. SmartFocus was among the select companies Forrester invited to participate in this Wave report. In the evaluation, SmartFocus was cited as a Strong Performer in the real-time interaction management market.
Much like personalization, out of context offers and communications need to be left in 2015. If contextual marketing was not an option for you in 2015, you need to ensure it is a priority for 2016 and beyond.
4. Cleanse your data for a healthier open rate:
I always get told a messy house equals a messy mind. Well, this can also be said for your data house. If you have millions of pieces of data but only 50% of it is relevant to your business, this is not healthy for your campaigns. It’s time to get all feng shui with your CRM in 2016.
Hubspot recently announced they had unsubscribed 250k people from their marketing blog and started sending less email.
Well, this was all down to ‘graymail’ AKA emails you technically opted in to receive but don’t really want. By removing these graymail recipients who would usually delete or send to the junk folder straight away, you increase your deliverability rate and essentially your click through rate. Which is exactly why Hubspot did it. They also notified the unengaged recipients, letting them know they were getting unsubscribed, which gave them a chance to re-engage before saying goodbye!
Of course, this is not something you should do without careful planning. Ensure you have a clear idea of who isn’t engaging with your brand, and strategize how you define an un-engaged customer e.g. not opened an email in the past 3 months, 6 months or longer?
5. Improve your AOV through higher value product recommendations:
Existing customers are often much more valuable to a brand than new ones. This is partly due to the opportunity of cross selling and up selling once a customer has committed to purchase. Many brands, especially retailers, turn to the Amazon style of ‘those who bought this also bought this’ strategy, which is great, but not always the best option when trying to increase average order value (AOV), especially if the products suggested are low ticket items.
In 2016, try recommending higher value products to customers, using your key component- data - to help you do it.
Include the customer’s previous search terms and purchase history, social behavior, demographics including location, and their existing shopping cart to first ensure the recommendations are relevant. Then look for the times when sales increase, peak and decline, and identify the unique cycles for those specific product categories.
Be sure to choose an organized approach to your recommendations. Think quality over quantity. Out of the available products, present higher value items to your most loyal customer segment. This type of product recommendation can also be effective when used as part of a ‘complete the look’ concept.
For help or advice with implementing any of these suggestions, speak with one of our friendly consultants.