As digital marketers, we find new strategies exciting but know it can be daunting when trying to run a business. Do you really need to learn about website builder tools for personalization, AI chats, and lead nurturing? While learning about digital marketing may seem like a lot, personalization is making it easier to convert leads to customers. We’ve put together this guide to give you more information on why personalization matters and how it’s working today.
Personalized Marketing Versus Wide Marketing
Small businesses benefit from only having to show their messages to targeted customers, people with an interest in their business. They don’t ask everyone in the world to buy their soda. Personalized marketing asks the 35-year-old mother in New York City if she needs a new stroller. It tells her how great this stroller’s wheels are at gripping slick sidewalks, solving a problem unique to her life.
How This Looks in Action
Personalization is when your marketing messages speak more directly to your potential customer. They can identify better with the message. Some ways that you can do this include addressing your newsletter using the customer’s first name. It can also mean sending emails with recommendations based on past sales or what the customer last saw on your website.
Other examples include retargeted ads, birthday emails, cart abandonment emails, and a “Welcome Back” pop-up message on a webpage. It can also mean using an AI Chatbot that personally answers questions. It can mean content targeted at a segment of customers who meet criteria like age, interests, or other collected information. These are just a few ways online marketing is using personalization today.
5 Benefits of Personalization in Digital Marketing
Is personalization just a trend, or is this something small businesses really need to pay attention to? Do customers like it, or do they find it annoying? These are questions everyone deserves answers to before investing time and money into these strategies.
To figure this out, surveys have been done looking at strategies like personalized recommendations. They found that 49% of customers had purchased items they didn’t originally intend to because of a personalized recommendation. They’ve also found that customers prefer instant results from AI Chatbots and seeing their first name in emails. We’ll dive into the benefits for businesses below but want to make clear that data backs this up: it matters.
1. Timing
Timing can mean everything when it comes to conversations. In a physical store, employees greet customers as soon as they come in to make them feel welcome. They then answer any questions as soon as they arise. If that customer wandered the store without answers, they might just leave instead of buying something they wanted.
Online personalization is making this level of instant customer service possible, thereby increasing conversions. From our experience at Next Level Media Crew, we see this with the advantages offered by AI Chats. Surveys have backed our experiences up. One found that customers would rather talk to a chatbot than wait even 15 minutes for a human agent.
2. Nurture Leads
Marketing teams work hard at capturing potential buyers (leads) and converting them into customers. This is known as lead nurturing. It includes tactics like answering their questions, writing strong copy, and including calls to action at the ends of content. It can also mean knowing what a potential buyer wants and then giving it to them.
Personalization strategies allow marketers to create campaigns targeted at individuals. For example, you could create a blog post that gets a lot of search engine traffic. People arrive on the page after searching for a way to fix an appliance. Your website builder includes an AI Chat with a pop-up that says, “Were you looking for this replacement part? Purchase here.”
3. Drives Repeat Engagement
The more you learn about your customers, the easier it is to know their needs, and the easier it is to sell to them. Looking at your sales history, you can see that clients who purchased your book then went on to purchase your course. You can make that easier for them by emailing every customer who purchased your book with information on your course.
This is how personalization works in digital marketing. Once you know what a certain type of customer wants, you can take simple steps to give it to them. The data backs this up. Surveys found that 78% of customers were likely to repurchase from companies that personalize.
4. Increased Referrals
It may be hard to believe that personalization can increase the likelihood that a customer will refer their friends. However, studies were done on things like product recommendations and other personalized experiences. They found that these experiences made customers 78% more likely to recommend a business. Personalization can increase referrals and social media shares.
While the surveyed customers didn’t say why this increased the likelihood that they would share, we can guess. It seems like customers enjoy having recommendations meant for them. They like shops that show them the things they want instead of making them browse endlessly. They then want to bring their friends into those kinds of cool shopping experiences.
5. Customer Loyalty
It’s harder to sell to a new potential customer than it is to sell to someone who has purchased from you in the past. One of the reasons for this is that businesses earn trust when they successfully complete a translation. They don’t have to prove to this person that they are a legitimate business that isn’t going to scam them.
Another reason repeat sales have become easier is personalization. When companies collect data like geographic location, interests, and past sales, they can remarket to the customer with increased relevancy. This can look like a newsletter sent to customers with personalized recommendations. The more personal the sales experience, the easier it is for a customer to decide to buy.
Website Builder Personalization Strategies
How do you create a website with personalization in mind? You want a website that drives sales, earns the respect of your clients, and creates opportunities for personalization. This can look like building an AI Chat to answer their questions at a moment’s notice. You can ask your designer about possibilities for personalized pop-ups to appear on specific pages of your website.
This can also be as simple as having targeted copywriting on your web pages. Perhaps your analytics have shown you that most customers reached a page following a specific search query. You can craft a targeted message for those customers.
When we talk about personalization today, we’re talking about seamless experiences for customers. We’re talking about effective sales funnels and how to increase conversation rates and develop customer loyalty. This is what we think about when crafting sites for the small businesses we partner with. Contact Next Level Media Crew to schedule a strategy call for your business today.
