Why is personalisation important in marketing? And when did marketing become so impersonal anyway?
Some context. It’s 2023 and Instagram, among many other social platforms, has been around (and changing) for over 12 years. This means your audience has seen a lot. For over a decade they’ve seen brands promise them the world, and in a lot of cases, under-deliver.
It’s the job of a brand and business to address the concerns and aspirations of their consumer, being empathetic to their lives: their wants and needs. But the question is, how do you do that?
The answer is personalised marketing.
In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, personalisation has emerged as a key differentiator in successful marketing campaigns. Consumers are increasingly expecting tailored experiences that cater to their individual preferences and needs.
Over the years, as a digital branding and marketing agency, we have seen the scale, pace, and transformative power of personalisation, and believe that it will shape the future of marketing. In this blog post, we explore the current possibilities, as well as the potential of personalisation in the future.
Firstly, to answer the question of what is personalisation in marketing, it can be any one of the following:
- Hyper personalisation marketing
- AI-powered personalisation / suggestions
- Real-time personalisation
- Omni channel personalisation
- Interactive experiences
Hyper-Relevant Content:
Personalisation has come a long way from basic name placeholders in email marketing (this ship has truly sailed). Even Siri has some impressive competition. The future is what’s exciting, holding huge potential for hyper-relevant content that goes beyond demographic information. Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predictive analytics are now allowing marketers to leverage vast amounts of data and create highly personalised and interesting experiences. Today’s brands are presented with the opportunity to utilise real-time data to deliver content tailored to a user’s context, behaviour, and preferences, enhancing engagement, loyalty, and conversion rates. Ultimately, the biggest pros of personalisation in marketing is in providing a better marketing return on investment (ROI).
Let’s get stuck into the detail.
The Rise of AI-powered Chatbots:
Chatbots have become an integral part of customer service, increasing reply times and formulating lifestyle specific questions and answers that make a user feel truly heard and looked after. In addition, their role is expanding rapidly. AI-powered chatbots can also analyse vast amounts of data to understand customer behaviour, intent, and sentiment. This enables them to further provide personalised recommendations, answer queries, and even offer personalised product or service suggestions. We’re already seeing chatbots evolving into intelligent virtual assistants, capable of building stronger relationships with customers through personalised interactions. Perhaps one day, they’ll be more helpful than our current phone provider’s customer service. We can only dream.
Real-Time Personalisation:
Put simply, the dynamic process of tailoring content, messages, and experiences to individual users in the exact moment they engage with your brand. By leveraging technologies, data analytics, and machine learning algorithms, brands can now deliver highly relevant and personalised content to their customers across various digital touch-points, enabling marketers to create authentic connections, enhance customer experience, and ultimately drive conversions and brand loyalty. This could be dependant on the time of day a user is interacting with your brand, the weather, their location, or relevant news and events. Real-Time Personalisation allows brands to deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time, leading to higher engagement, improved customer satisfaction, and a competitive edge.
Omni-channel Personalisation:
Because consumers interact with brands across multiple touch points including printed collateral, email, website, social media, phone and in-store, delivering a consistent and personalised experience is crucial. There’s nothing worse that seeing an ad for a business or brand, feeling a certain way, and then going to their website (or worse, in-store) and having a totally different, perhaps negative experience. This is why the future of personalisation lies in seamlessly integrating data from various channels to create a unified customer profile. With the advancements in marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) tools, brands will be able to deliver tailored messages across multiple channels, including websites, social media, email, and mobile apps.
Interactive Experiences:
Personalisation is not only limited to content but also extends to interactive experiences. Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) create immersive and personalised experiences for customers. From virtual product trials (clothes, beauty and even bed sheets) to personalised voice assistants and virtual showrooms, these technologies are enabling brands to offer unique and memorable experiences, fostering deeper connections with their audience, and ultimately driving sales.
Hopefully this recap has got you excited and motivated, not overwhelmed. You’re likely thinking, how long will this last, and what does the future hold for personalisation in marketing? And are there any downfalls?
The cons of personalisation in marketing are few and far. As with many emerging technology trends, privacy concerns and data management are the things to look out for. As a marketer one of your main jobs will be to address these challenges and ensure your digital marketing personalisation efforts are ethical and effective. This really comes down to privacy and trust: consumers are increasingly aware of how their data is being used and demand transparency and control over their personal information, at all times. The future of personalisation will require businesses and brands to strike a balance between leveraging data to deliver relevant experiences, and respecting the privacy of their customers. Building trust through transparent data practices and robust security measures will be essential for successful personalisation strategies.
Personalisation marketing examples:
In beauty specifically, several brands including Software or Glossier have used personalisation technologies to increase customer engagement and ultimately drive conversions. An example of this has been through the use of a shade selection or skincare quiz. After being prompted via email, organic social, or paid advertising, users can answer a few simple questions regarding their skincare or makeup routine, as well as uploading photos of their face, showing their complexion, to then be prescribed personalised products and a regime.
There are several emerging trends and technologies in marketing personalisation that can allow you to leverage data and AI further, to deliver more personalised experiences to customers in the future. Some of these include:
- Adobe Target: Adobe Target is a robust personalisation platform that allows marketers to create and deliver personalised experiences across multiple channels. It offers advanced targeting and testing capabilities, machine learning algorithms, and integration with Adobe’s Marketing Cloud suite.
- Optimizely: Optimizely (now known as Episerver) is a popular experimentation and personalisation platform. It provides tools for A/B testing, multivariate testing, and targeted content delivery, enabling marketers to optimise user experiences and drive conversions.
- Dynamic Yield: Dynamic Yield is an AI-powered personalisation platform that helps marketers deliver tailored experiences across channels, including websites, mobile apps, and email. It offers a range of features such as dynamic messaging, product recommendations, and behavioural triggers.
- Monetate: Monetate is a personalisation platform that allows marketers to create and deliver customised experiences based on user behaviour, preferences, and context. It offers testing and targeting capabilities, as well as advanced segmentation and personalisation rules.
- Salesforce Interaction Studio: Salesforce Interaction Studio (formerly Evergage) is a real-time personalisation platform that enables marketers to deliver individualised experiences at scale. It combines data from various sources to create personalised interactions across channels and touch-points.
- Gorgias: Gorgias is a customer support platform that combines help desk, live chat, and customer engagement tools to streamline customer communication and deliver personalised support experiences.
- Zendesk: Zendesk is a customer service software platform that provides businesses with tools for managing customer support tickets, inquiries, and interactions across various channels.
- Octane AI: Octane AI is a platform that specialises in creating chatbots and automated messaging for e-commerce businesses to enhance customer engagement and drive sales.
- Banuba: Banuba’s virtual makeup try-on technology allows users to virtually try on different makeup products and styles in real-time using augmented reality, providing an interactive and immersive experience for exploring and experimenting with makeup looks.
In Conclusion:
As technology continues to advance, the future of personalisation in marketing holds so much promise. From hyper-relevant content to AI-powered chatbots, interactive experiences, and omni-channel personalisation, brands must adapt to stay ahead in the evolving landscape. As a digital branding and marketing agency, we‘re super excited about the possibilities that personalisation brings, even for our own work, and we look forward to partnering with forward-thinking brands to create meaningful and personalised experiences that drive customer engagement, loyalty, and business growth in the years to come.
As a digital branding agency, we‘re super excited about the possibilities that personalisation brings, even for our own work, and look forward to partnering with forward-thinking brands to create meaningful and personalised experiences that drive customer engagement, loyalty, and business growth in the years to come.
Are you one of them? Contact us for more information or reach out [email protected] to arrange a chat with one of our amazing staff.
