Personalization has been in the marketing approach for several years. It is now increasingly important, especially in North American retail industry. The purchasing process of today’s consumers has changed significantly compared to previous generations. Millennial consumers have different needs and are looking for shopping experiences. In fact, 71% of current consumers are disappointed when a shopping experience is impersonal (Segment 2017) and 70% of millennial consumers are offended by brands that send irrelevant emails (SmarterHQ).
These statistics are a reminder on the importance of personalizing the customer experience, in order to attract their interest, obtain their loyalty and increase their shopping basket. However, to be able to differentiate yourself from the competition, you now have to push the customization to the maximum and start doing hyper-personalization.
1. What is hyper-personalization?
Hyper-personalization is the most accurate individualized marketing strategy for targeting consumers. Brands are doing this by creating personalized and targeted experiences through the use of data, analytics, artificial intelligence and automation. With hyper-personalization, businesses can prepare and deliver highly personalized communications to specific customers at the right time and through the right channel.
With digital marketing becoming increasingly competitive, hyper-personalized marketing is an option that offers merchants the opportunity to meaningfully engage their customers, deepen existing relationships and build new ones, and thereby improve the overall customer experience.
To succeed in your hyper-personalization strategy, you must also ensure that it meets the following three points:
- Relevance: The information must be adapted as much as possible to the profile of the recipient (have several personalization criteria)
- Consistency: Personalized information is the same across all communication channels (sending the same message)
- Constancy: The information communicated today takes into account what has been send in the past and will influence the information to come. (follow and adapt to the evolution of the customer profile).
Finally, hyper-personalization requires finding the best way to segment your mailings so as to personalize them with the information that interests the recipient and that is relevant.
2. What are the challenges with hyper-personalization?
Hyper-personalization brings its share of challenges, here are a few:
- Have a team or a person dedicated to the relevance of communications, to ensure that business objectives are in relation to the customer.
- Understand how to use customer data to develop the right personalization.
- Be careful not to make bad personalization, for example on the basis of assumptions in the case of absence of data. Always make sure to customize according to customer preferences and information held.
- Obtain the support of all teams (IT, suppliers). Everyone must understand the purpose of the project and their roles.
3. What are the impacts of hyper-personalized campaigns?
Hyper-personalization contributes to the customer experience and it is the customer experience that will influence consumer purchases. This is an asset to help brands stand out from the competition. The consumer is more likely to favor the choice of one brand over another if this brand demonstrates efforts to be interested in the latter by creating a different experience. In fact, 91% of consumers say they are more likely to buy with brands that give offers and recommendations that are relevant to them (Accenture). Additionally, 83% of consumers are willing to share their data to create a more personalized experience (Accenture). In short, today’s consumers demand and want more personalization.
Companies that implement this strategy see an increase in customer satisfaction, there is less unsubscription to communications sent and click rates and engagement are better. This has a positive impact on sales. In fact, marketers report a 760% increase in revenue from personalized and segmented email campaigns (campaign monitor). Finally, businesses that use advanced personalization report a $20 return on investment for every dollar spent (Clockz).
4. Consumer loyalty
By responding to the customer’s need for personalization, it is easier to build customer loyalty. Millennials’ loyalty to a brand increases by 28% if they receive a personal communication (smarterHQ).
Consumer loyalty will positively affect retailer performance. In fact, 60% of Canadian consumers buy from a store because they like the loyalty program (Total Retail). Loyal consumers will buy more frequently, their average shopping cart will increase and they are more likely to promote the brand in their network.
Hyper-personalization at Dialog Insight
If you are looking for a business partner to get started in personalizing your digital marketing, do not hesitate to contact our team. With the Dialog Insight platform, it is easy to analyze your data and then segment it and produce several versions of the same communication adapted to different segments. Let’s talk!