Taking your digital marketing strategy to the next level requires more than just another e-blast or a few additional Facebook posts. It requires a concerted effort to evolve and adapt to the demands of your target audience - and today's consumers are demanding personalization.
Personalized Marketing Defined
Personalized marketing involves the use of data-driven technology to learn more about individual consumers and deliver a unique, or personalized, marketing experience. In today's world, personalized marketing is expected by the average consumer. According to Salesforce, 52% of consumers will switch brands if the vendor doesn't personalize communications.
5 Factors Affecting Your Personalized Marketing
Personalized marketing can create a much better experience for the consumer. According to Salesforce and SocialMediaToday, these factors affect your marketing to enhance personalization:
1. Location
The location of your consumer drastically affects both the marketing messages they expect to receive and that you are expected to send. Due to weather, trends, availability, laws, interests and so much more, location is a key driver for personalization. If you are a national clothing retailer, your marketing message (and the clothing you promote) will vary greatly between a West Coast town like Malibu, CA. and a land-locked Midwestern city such as Chicago, IL. You won't be selling winter coats to your Malibu customers just as you wouldn't sell board shorts to your Chicago customers.
2. Device
The user experience varies greatly across different devices - and that is where responsive design comes in. Responsive design ensures that your website will respond to whatever device it is being displayed on to provide the best possible experience for the user. Responsive design goes beyond just re-sizing a website to fit the screen. You need to think about what your users' end-goals are on each device. If you are being searched on a mobile device, chances are the user is seeking a phone number, email address or directions to your location. Your website should be coded to respond to the device and show the most important items first (i.e. phone number, email address, link to directions).
3. Customer History
The ability to recognize a customer's history with your company can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Through email segmentation, Google AdWords campaigns, and remarketing in Facebook ads, you can recognize what each customer has bought from you in the past, when they bought it and much more. Using this newfound data, you can hone your marketing pitch to meet their exact interests.
4. Referring URL
Something as simple as a referring URL can tell you so much about a particular customer. Through Google Analytics, you can identify the top referring URLs for your website. With greater in-depth analysis and technology, you can even identify the referring URL for an individual consumer. This data will tell you which website the customer was on before coming to yours, unlocking a host of new information about the customer. If you are a realtor and a customer arrived on your website from a Military Veterans website, for example, you can target your content to be specific to the VA home loan program and how to go about getting a new house after returning home from active duty.
5. Search Keywords
One of the best ways to personalize your marketing content is by identifying the search keywords that led the user to your site. Obviously, if a consumer has arrived at your dentistry website searching for pediatric dentistry, you want to serve up content that discusses your capabilities for providing dental services to children. If a user types a search term into Google and clicks through to your website because it showed up in their results, they most certainly expect to receive content on said search term. If they don't immediately see related content, they will hop right off your website without a second thought.
Are you convinced that personalized marketing is the way to go? If so, contact Informatics Inc. today. Our team of Digital Marketing experts can help you get started with personalization on a host of different platforms.
