With constant shifts in the eCommerce market that influence shopping habits and customer expectations, we cannot forget about offering personalised experiences. Making it special for each one of your customers by displaying relevant content, as well as special offers and recommendations, all play a significant part in building a strategy that drives conversion.
The good news is, customers are willing to spend more once their expectations for personalised content have been fulfilled. They may be demanding, but they are the ones who make a final purchase, not you.
I get it, satisfying every individual seems a bit challenging, but with access to insights and quality data that collects and analyses information about customer behaviour, constant market shifts and changing shopping habits, followed by all eCommerce technology trends 2019, online retailers are now more powerful than ever. Let’s look into the benefits of personalisation in eCommerce with an overview of eCommerce personalisation stats.
Understanding of Personalised Marketing
Personalisation is not an add-on to your marketing efforts, it’s a foundation of a modern and successful marketing strategy. Regardless of your products, services and industry, you’re in, eCommerce personalisation trends and their cross-channel integration, play a huge part in driving brand loyalty and conversion.
Targeting specific audiences, providing plenty of relevant content with better recommendations… it all belongs to personalisation, which in other words means building strong relationships with your customers. You can, or even should implement personalised marketing strategy into different marketing channels starting with email and social to optimising your website and blog.
No matter what you’ve heard before, data is your friend. It all begins with collecting information about your users to analyse their behaviour and learn more about their preferences. Once you have a picture of your typical consumer, you can begin working on personalisation and display what has to be displayed, offer what should be offered, all at the right time and place. That’s what success of marketing campaigns highly depends on.
“There is no point in sending me generic messages that don’t apply to me. There is no point in telling me to go to the gym when I am on a journey to a football match. If you get the timings right and get the understanding of me right, I’m much more likely to engage” – Richard Cooper, AXA PPP Healthcare’s head of digital eCommerce, speaking at the Festival of Marketing.
Personalisation is A Top Priority
Now that I’ve covered some basics of personalised marketing, we can move on to looking at some of the greatest benefits brought by eCommerce personalisation strategies. Trust me, there are many. Let’s look at some stats from Instapage, to begin with.
- 80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers personalised experiences.
- Marketers see an average increase of 20% in sales when using personalised experiences.
- Lack of content relevancy generates 83% lower response rates in the average marketing campaign.
- 63% of consumers said they’d think more positively of a brand if it gave them content that was more valuable, interesting or relevant.
- 77% of consumers have chosen, recommended, or paid more for a brand that provides a personalised service or experience.
The above numbers illustrate how customers feel about personal shopping experiences. Tailoring your personalised marketing strategy to every individual leads to great success. Why is personalisation so important? To convince you, here are the key points to prove that Personalised Customer Experience Increases Revenue and Loyalty for your eCommerce.
- Omnichannel Consistency
Knowing that shoppers nowadays may begin browsing on desktop and finalise the purchase on mobile, it is important for you to provide the same exceptional experience across different channels, including email, social, mobile app and your website. Once you remember your shopper across each and every channel, they will thank you for by making a purchase.
- Building Strong Relationships with your Customers
By remembering your customer and saving their preferences, you can show them how much each one of them means to you. Personalisation is not only generating sales but also connecting with your consumers on a deeper level and keep them coming back for more.
- Loyalty
Considering that nearly half of consumers will likely become repeat buyers if the shopping experience has been personalised with a specific company, it is your chance to gain your loyal customers. Show you appreciation with gift cards, personalised offers and even consider loyalty programs and you will see the results just after.
- Good Reviews
Satisfied customers leave better reviews and are more likely to recommend your brand to others. You will become a trusted brand that is able to reach out to a wider audience, attract new customers, and so on. Once you power the personalisation strategy that never fails, you will generate some serious sales and drive revenue.
- Brand Awareness
Have you ever thought about how users actually feel about your brand? If their experience is somehow interesting, exciting and most important, relevant, they will be speaking positively about your offerings. This doesn’t only mean 5-star reviews, it is driving brand awareness, supporting your core values and reaching to a wider audience.
- Long-term Results
Think of personalisation as something that never disappoints. No matter what you sell, there’s always a place for relevancy and tailored content. You may not see instant results, because it takes time and effort to collect and analyse data from different sources that may be relevant to you, but by doing so you will build a successful long-term strategy for your business.
- Generating Sales
Looking at some stats, 40% of executives said their customer personalisation efforts have directly affected sales and profits in channels like eCommerce. In other words, shoppers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers tailored experiences. It has been proved the approach has resulted in sales for many retailers, so you have nothing to lose by trying.
- Driving Revenue
With access to the quality data, you can identify revenue opportunities for your business across every channel. Once you understand what channel creates the most engagement and where your customers drop off, you will be able to respond with a personalised strategy for each one of your customers, which will significantly increase ROI.
- More Engagement
Personalised content creates more engagement and “buzz” around your brand. If customers can get something in return, they will be willing to take part in your contests, surveys and giveaways, which also provides you with some valuable data for your records and improvement.
- Leaving Your Competition Behind
One more thing to keep in mind, a good personalisation strategy will help you stay way ahead of your competition. Apart from trust and authority, your brand will be known for providing exceptional shopping experiences that bring results.
Big Brands and Personalisation
Hopefully these points have convinced you to integrate personalisation and customisation in eCommerce, across all channels. Let’s cover a few examples of big brands that have mastered personalisation methods.
Spotify
Creating a variety of marketing campaigns with tailored content for each one of the users, Spotify takes personalisation to the next level. With their 2018 campaign, we could get insights to most listened songs, genres, artists compared with other users and many more.
Nike
With Nike+ loyalty program, the brand tripled their revenue because of personalisation offered through Nike apps. The company has noticed that users spend three times more than shoppers buying at Nike.com. That’s a real proof that investing in personalised mobile apps and loyalty programs can be a great return on investment.
Netflix
Let’s not forget about this giant media provider that drives results through analyzing some serious data. Being a top choice for video streaming across the world, Netflix knows each one of their users in and out. The brand analyses what users have watched and identifies their preferences to provide recommendations that match our expectations.
Takeaway
Customers want to be remembered and once they feel appreciated and find what they were looking for, they will be more likely to come back for more. New technologies followed by AI advancements are making your marketing goals much more achievable, so there’s no excuse for you to not try it out. To recap, here’s why personalisation is a real marketing boost:
- Omnichannel Consistency
- Building Strong Relationships with your Customers
- Loyalty
- Good Reviews
- Brand Awareness
- Long-term Results
- Generating Sales
- Driving Revenue
- More Engagement
- Leaving Your Competition Behind
Good luck on your personalisation efforts!
Contributor: This blog post is written by Karolina, she is a content writer for creative digital agency Appnova, London that specialises in luxury brands. She loves to write content based on current ecommerce, social media and marketing trends and provide insight into customer care, fashion and the beauty sector.
