When it comes to creating a successful marketing campaign, many companies are turning to personalization as a way of making a more profound connection that results in higher conversions and more sales.
Studies have shown that more and more businesses and organizations are adopting personalization as a marketing strategy. They say that their customers are demanding it. Long gone are the days of sending out a generic mass mailer or promotional email blast and having it drive a flood of new business.
The average consumer gets bombarded with hundreds of advertisements on a daily basis. Over time, and due in part to internet advertising, people have begun to ignore advertising campaigns that are generic in nature. They want something that speaks to both them and their needs.
Smart businesses will know and understand that and craft a personalized marketing experience that will help drive new business and sales. Here are five tips that you can immediately start to use to help personalize your marketing campaigns:
Customer Profiles
How do you know how to personalize your marketing campaigns if you don’t know who you’re marketing to?
Before you can begin crafting the personalization experience, you’ll need to create a profile on your customers. Try to learn who they are (demographics), what pain points they have, and any other relevant information that you can use to market to them later down the road.
There are many online tools out there that can help you with aggregating and segmenting this data so that you can begin a personalized marketing campaign.
You can also create profiles using an Excel spreadsheet, but keep in mind that as time goes by and the spreadsheet grows bigger and bigger, it could get cumbersome and unwieldy. A quick Google search will provide several software solutions that can help you manage and grow your customer profiles.
Segmentation
As your database grows, you’ll discover that your top customers will fit certain profiles that repeat themselves. When it comes time to market to them, you can easily create a marketing message. Personalization will resonate very well and cause them to pay attention.
Creating personalization using
variable data printing is a cost-effective way. You can have several different marketing messages printed up for your direct mailers or promotional products. This will help increase sales as you’re showing your customers the products and services that they’re interested in.
Customer Loyalty Program
Grocery stores, gas stations, and big box electronic stores all have customer loyalty programs which can help increase repeat business. You don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company to afford a customer loyalty program.
Many coffee shops will have business cards printed up wherein they will punch a hole in the card every time the customer buys a cup and their 10th cup of coffee is free.
If you have already segmented your list, you can personalize the loyalty program even further by offering discounts or other promotions on the items that your customers purchase regularly.
Customer Feedback
Studies have shown that 68% of consumers stop patronizing a business because they believe the company doesn’t care about them. They feel that the company is only there to make money and could care less about their customers.
In many ways, these people are right. Companies that don’t listen to customer feedback are in danger of losing their business.
In addition to having an area on your website where people can leave feedback, a great way to get in touch with your customers is to send an email and offer a discount in exchange for answering a few questions or providing their opinions about your business. By taking the time to show your customers that you care, you’re performing goodwill and further ingratiating your brand in their minds.
Copywriting and Messaging
The best way to establish a personal connection with your audience is to write your content in the first-person perspective. Talk to them in a semi-informal tone of voice that makes them feel like you’re their friend.
While grammar and spelling are essential, try to shy away from the stiff corporate-speak. It turns people off, and it makes your company sound like all you care about is making a profit.
Write as if you were having a casual lunch conversation with someone. Do this in your emails, on your blogs, and the content on your website. It will help lower people’s natural defenses to a sale when they read words and verbiage that doesn’t sound like it’s coming in for the hard sell.
Marketing Help in New Bern
At AlphaGraphics of New Bern, we’ve helped countless local businesses design and execute marketing campaigns that have driven solid results. If you need help personalizing your communications, or your marketing plan is not working out as intended, you may email us, request a quote or call us at (252) 633-3199.