Content marketing has evolved to become a prized strategy because of its ability to connect and retain customers. Yet this is the reason why content marketing has become the solution for selling goods, services and most importantly, brand.
Essentially, content marketing helps a brand tell it’s story and values, in hopes to engage with customers personally on a mass scale. So to do this, many brands have turned to automation- to help speed things up and all the while, reach their consumers.
However, with automation comes a compromise – the more automation, the less personal the messages will be.
Automating your marketing strategy is of course, important. Systemising and streamlining all your marketing processes will definitely stop you from ripping your hair out.
But being personal in your messages is not impossible. This brings me to, Personalised Marketing.
What is Personalised Marketing?
Personalised marketing is simply put – a strategy that companies implement in delivering individualised content to audiences using the help of data collection, analysis, and automation. It is going beyond generalised content.
It is truly engaging and communicating with consumers individually through knowing and understanding them and their needs. You are tailoring your messages to create a content rich experience and special relationship with each consumer.
When you personalise your content to your audience, the audience will immediately feel a connection. You understand them, you empathise for them.
Very quickly your brand won’t just be a brand to them. You’ll be a friend. Because when we try to be understanding and caring of their needs, your consumers will feel that, and hence the trust bond is simply and purely created.
A great example of personalised marketing is Coke’s “Share A Coke” Campaign in 2014. As you may be familiar with this, Coke gave it’s consumers the ability to customize their Coke bottles, replacing the brand name for personalised names to encourage consumers to share Coke with their family and friends.
This campaign was so successful because it promoted self expression and individual storytelling, allowing their consumers to connect with each other and the brand, on a personal level.
Benefits of Personalised Marketing
There are valuable objectives that your business can benefit from personalised marketing.
The first one is improved customer experience. Personalised marketing leads to happier consumers. Do you remember the last time you shopped from Ebay.com?
Have you noticed that they send frequent emails of highly relevant product and deal recommendations, that are personalised by categories you have searched for?
Shopping from their website is easy and highly engaging because they are able to focus on each key stages of the customer’s buying journey – interacting specifically at each customer touch-points to ensure a seamless customer experience that is made as relevant to the customer as possible.
Example: #JustForChristina – Make Offers your resolution this January!
When consumers are presented with appealing content that is customised to their needs and interests, consumers will feel connected to you.
Because when you address their concerns and show that you understand and care for their needs, consumers will be more trusting in your brand. By creating this special customer experience, this will positively influence their purchasing decisions.
Improved customer experiences lead to increased brand loyalty. How many times have you shopped from Ebay? Thanks to its highly personalised services, customers have chosen eBay as their go-to online marketplace.
Why? eBay understands its consumers and is constantly informing its customers of highly relevant products and deals based on what the customers have searched before. From this, consumers become more interactive with the eBay, and over time builds trust and reliance on the brand.
From this example, when trust is created gradually, consumers become more loyal to your brand. This shows that businesses who dedicate time and resources to implement a strong personalised marketing strategy will benefit customer preference, brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.
Personalised marketing also drives revenue. With every purchase you make on eBay, the more sales and revenue produced (of course!). Customising your content to consumer’s needs creates higher conversion rates and ultimately more sales.
According to Experian, “personalised promotional emails have 29% higher unique open rates and 41% higher click rates than non-personalised emails”. Companies that have shown to use personalised marketing also gain an increase of 19% in total sales.
Conclusion
With marketing automation, we must not disregard the importance of personalising our content. The consumers in today’s digital world are thirsty for personalisation and the delivery of unique digital shopping experience.
The essence of personalised marketing is that you won’t be able to compromise automation for personalisation; being able to streamline your marketing systems while elevating the bond in the relationship between your brand and your consumers.
To learn how to personalise your marketing content and campaigns, stay tuned for the next upcoming blog. I will be sharing lots of tips, tricks and cool ideas on how you can spice up your brand to close the relationship gap between you and your customers.
Any questions?
Feel free to talk to one of our digital strategists today. We are more than happy to help! Contact us now.
