Editorial Articles

Content management is an issue which digital marketers come-up against again and again. We know that establishing one-to-one communication is the primary goal of marketing yet, while you might have excellent content, without personalisation there is no incentive for your audience to actually pay attention. Personalisation is what gets your content recognised.

At its most basic level, personalisation is knowing the recipient’s first and/or last name. This is not enough though. When taken further, personalisation complements segmentation – message content can be keyed to a recipient’s location, attributes, status, preferences or behaviour. With personalisation you take certain elements of customer data and deliver content targeted to the individual. It sounds complicated but it can actually be a straightforward simple process if you follow some basic personalisation steps.

Consider the impact of adding (or really, not adding) a first and/or last name to the subject line and body of an e-mail. By addressing an e-mail with “dear sir/madam” you could be sending yourself straight to the recycle bin, making the customer feel as if you don’t really know or value them.

You probably know your customers’ first and/or last names, especially if they’ve made a previous purchase—use this data! In cases where you can’t personalise your message through a name, there are other ways to establish a personal connection with your audience, such as using information like their birthday, closest store, clothing size, or favourite sports team to make a connection.

More sophisticated personalisation tactics allow you to capitalise on meaningful interactions with customers. These campaigns can be divided into three key categories:

Using personalised content to encourage sales
Highly personalised and productive campaigns provide an opportunity to use personal and relevant content to promote sales, e.g. sending an e-mail that reminds a customer of items left in the shopping basket from a recent visit to your Web site. By testing the affects of personalisation, it is possible to further entice a purchase by offering a special discount if they act quickly. Personalisation lies in knowing what your customer likes, and applying that knowledge to promote products for which they have a soft spot.

Loyalty marketing programmes can also drive a purchase. Take for example a music retailer that offers reward points. In order to calculate the points it must track how much a customer spends on each purchase. It’s highly likely it’s also tracking the kind of music he purchases and his purchase frequency. By sending an e-mail reminder of how many points he’s accrued or combine the email offer with an account update pop-up on login, the retailer can prompt him to claim his reward. The retailer could also offer a special discount or double reward points for his next purchase.

Using personal content to build relationships
Demonstrating goodwill by providing helpful information helps to strengthen your relationship with a customer. This approach enhances their experience with your company and shows that you care about them as an individual.

Travel agencies are already quite effective at this strategy. They maintain customer contact by sending confirmation e-mails for the booking, sending across images and extra details about the holiday package a couple of weeks before departure, details about local amenities and the weather report a week beforehand. These not only provide opportunities to cross and up sell, but also go above and beyond the purchase, providing additional relevant information which is sure to generate a positive brand experience.

Letting customers chose their content
Distinct from relationship-building programmes, content targeting allows a customer to dictate the information they want to receive and how they want to receive it.
A newsletter provides an ideal opportunity for this. A simple example might be a sporting organisation that allows a fan to specify a particular team that they are interested in, the content can then, of course, be targeted to that specific team. By consistently delivering custom content to fans the newsletter is seen as a reliable, trusted resource, keeping fans actively engaged and further strengthening fan support.

Ultimately, for your content to be heard above the din, your communications need to go further in terms of ensuring the content is targeted, relevant and explicitly demonstrating that you know that customer.

Author: Simone Barratt, MD, e-Dialog International