It’s Business, But It's Personal

“Personalized marketing is really more of a psychological analysis where you can really understand the right language and how to reach a buyer.” – Joseph Cole

Your marketing message has a HUGE impact on the audience. The better you know and understand your target customer, the more they will recognise that it’s them that you’re there to help. That’s why it’s vital to be delivering marketing messages that connect with your audience.

As a business, you are fighting for attention in a highly saturated market, so you need to stand out. Your business needs appeal specifically to your target audience, so that your message cuts through that noise and speaks loud and clear directly to them. So yes, it’s business, but it’s personal.

What is personalised marketing?

Personalised marketing uses personal information to tailor a message that is designed to address a business or individual in a way that leaves them feeling like you were speaking DIRECTLY to them.

Why should you incorporate personalised marketing into your strategy?

There are a number of reasons to personalising your marketing.

Increase brand loyalty. If your audience has submitted information and data about themselves, then they want to be treated as an individual. By using the right tools and methods, the audience will feel like a person not just a number. Even by using their first name you can start to build a rapport as two people – not two faceless organisations. This leads to greater customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty and inevitably – improved customer retention.
Increase ROI. Focus your marketing where it will really make a difference by identifying your customer’s preferred channels. By understanding which channel your customers are engaging with the most, you can tailor the content to suit. For example, you may have a different audience engaging with your LinkedIn profile than you do on Facebook. Use tools such as Facebook Analytics to identify common characteristics and traits of your audience and develop the most relevant content. This will then drive revenue as you aren’t wasting money on ineffective channels.
Improve customer experience. Generally, customers are happy to provide their personal information in exchange for something. They will expect their data to be treated securely and sensitively, but also for it to enhance their user experience with your business. Your customers are far more likely to respond to marketing messages that mean something to them and relate to them and their lives.
Nurture leads. Inevitably, the end goal of your marketing and sales activity is to drive your leads down the funnel so that they become your customers. As the funnel narrows, you will want to use more personalised content to ensure the relationship becomes closer, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Increase engagement. Personalised marketing can boost your customer engagement and hold your customer’s attention for longer. With meaningful content that speaks directly to them, your audience can relate to it more, which encourages them to click, comment and react.

Personalised marketing does require a little more thought and care. Consider what your customers really want to see, making sure that their needs are at the heart of the marketing message – with the right message, in the right place at the right time.

How to start personalising your marketing

Now you can see how beneficial personalised marketing is for your business, how do you start?

Gather data. The first step is to gather the data. You need to find out what your audience’s behaviours and habits are and what they want. You can gather data from several sources, such as questionnaires and analytics across your social media and website platforms. You can also ask for data and information directly, such as email marketing subscriptions. Just reassure your audience that their data will be processed reasonably and lawfully. You can also capture data using code on your website or landing pages, as well as Facebook Pixels. This way you can identify behaviours such as abandoned baskets, or time spent on your site.

Create a customer persona. After you have collected your data, it’s time to analyse it and start thinking about how you can use it. Begin creating some customer personas. These should be fairly detailed and cover a range of factors and characteristics (where relevant), such as their location, gender, age, as well as their interests, habits and pain points. These customer personas need to be based on your ideal customer and will be used to guide both the style and content of your marketing.

Map the customer journey. What will happen to your audience at different parts of your funnel? Really consider what you want to happen at each stage and how you can tailor the communication to align with their thought process at that stage. Remember – at the bottom of the funnel you need to be producing far more personalised content.

CRM Systems. Using a CRM is a great way to track the customer journey. You can write notes, and compile information about your customer, ensuring you know exactly where they are in the process and create a personalised experience.

Personalise email marketing campaigns. Email marketing platforms have some great automated tools that you can use. You can also send contacts vouchers on their birthday, as well as personalising the different elements within an email campaign, such as their first name in the subject line. You can also create segmentations of your audience to ensure the right contacts receive the right messages.

Social media. There are some great ways to be more personal on social media. For example, Instagram stories allow your audience to vote, submit answers and use other interactive tools. This is a great way for your audience to engage directly with you.

Adverts. Digital advertising is so advanced now, you can be incredibly granular with your customer segments. Using your analytics, personal data and customer persona, you are on the right track to a successful ad campaign that you can ensure the right advert and message is seen by the right people.

Videos. Video is a hugely personal way to interactive and personalise your message, especially if you can reach out 1:1. Instead of an email, why not record a personal message? Platforms such as LinkedIn are embracing this concept with voice and video notes build into LinkedIn messages.