Nowadays, the consumer world has been changed dramatically thanks to an exponential increase in technology. Because we have the world at our fingertips thanks to our smartphones and tablets, consumers now want to have more personalization than ever when they’re shopping in the store or online. Customers don’t just want to get the same product that everyone else is having. Even if you sell similar products to all customers, every one of those consumers wants to be treated differently from the other person in the line.
This is a new fact of the business world and is something that every single business needs to take into account if they want to be successful in the 21st century. The good news for you is that there are plenty of new ways that you can personalize each of your customer’s shopping experiences so that they come away more happy than ever. Keep reading down below to learn more about these methods and how you can implement them right away in your company.
Personalized Emails
Imagine your email inbox. How many of those automated emails have you opened from companies that are not personalized at all and are obviously sent to thousands of people? Probably not a lot of them, right? Well, this is the same thing that happens with your customers if you are sending out thousands of automated emails. It’s been shown in numerous business studies that those emails that are sent as personalized to each customer are more likely to be opened than those that are obviously not.
Emails like birthday and anniversary emails that have their first name highlighted are much more likely to be opened than generic emails. This is a pretty easy thing to do with a marketing automation software that allows for this kind of customization.
Reward Brand Ambassadors
It’s been shown time and time again that those customers that refer products to their friends and family are going to have a higher success rate in getting them to buy that product than the business itself. People just trust people that they know more than some huge business that doesn’t have a face. So, let’s think about how you can use this logic to your advantage. One of those ways is by implementing a reward brand ambassador program to your business. These types of programs actually reward those customers who refer your product or service to other people. When those people buy the product, then that original customer might get a big discount on their next purchase.
Or you can have certain levels to your brand ambassador program. If they get 5, 10, or 15 friends to buy your product or subscribe to your service, then those levels get different discounts. This provides plenty of incentive for your customers to talk more about your offering and get their social networks involved. This will result in a lot more traffic driven to your site and to your physical store!
Action-Based Personalization
One of the best ways to offer personalization on your website is to gather data about your customer. The more that he or she uses the site, the more your site can look at this data and determine action-based personalization that is customized for them. For example, if your customer often deletes items from their shopping cart and puts them back in, then your site can automatically throw the deleted items onto a wish list for them to keep later. Or if there are certain items in a certain department that this customer looks at more than others, then there can be a link to suggested items that they might also like. When you do these little things on your site, your customer is going to be a lot more likely to keep coming back for more than if you just kept everything generic for all of your customers.
Hand-Curated Product Picks
If you are selling your products online, then you should think about how your customers also buy things in the store. Do you think your consumers spend hours walking around the store looking for the product that they want? Or do you look down the aisles to see what the main products are in that aisle or part of the store? The latter part is the right answer! Customers don’t want to spend too much of their time searching – they want to find the product that they desire as fast as possible and get on with their day.
This is the same logic that applies to your online store. It’s best to ensure that the products that your customer is going to be interested in are shown front and center, rather than just random products that you are selling. If a guy comes onto your online clothing store and only sees women’s clothing on the landing page, then this is going to turn him away. You can configure your site to calculate what someone is most likely going to be interested in based on their demographics and show that on the front page and on the landing page. However, this is not always true. There are many chances that a guy is looking for women’s clothing to gift her spouse. Therefore, showing only men’s product upfront on the homepage would not be a good idea as it would resemble that store is primarily focused on men’s clothing. However, it would be wise to have a message pop-up immediately on the landing page asking the customer if they are looking for men’s or women’s clothing? It will increase the probability of conversion and it is the best strategy to get the products filtered so that customer can choose the right product in less time.
Machine Learning
Now, the future is not here yet, but soon we will be living in an age where consumers won’t even have to look around for what they want. Sites will start to have the ability to offer what physical stores have been offering all along with customer service representatives. For example, in any clothing store, there is going to fashion experts who will help you determine what clothes are best based on your style and tastes. However, when it comes to online shopping, this kind of personalization is not available just yet. In the coming years, the rise of machine learning on e-commerce platforms is going to allow customers to not even have to look for products. Websites will automatically show them what they will most likely be attracted to, based on complex algorithms.
And there you have it! When it comes to personalizing your customer’s shopping experience, then there is no option. Consumers want their experiences to be customized to their own desires and needs. Make sure your business is on top of this if you want to be successful.
