A Quick Guide to… Personalisation

A Quick Guide to… Personalisation

Home » A Quick Guide to… Personalisation

We don’t mean to get personal, but are you being personal enough in your customer journeys?  In the face of tough economic times and ever-changing customer habits, it can be difficult to justify investing in a more personalised retail experience but if you’re not, are you missing a trick?

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What is it? Personalisation has quite a broad definition but for the purposes of a retail one, it’s about varying the content you share with your customers to make it more relevant for them. This is ideally based on what you already know about them from your customer profiling.


You mean one size fits all doesn’t work anymore?


It does, but it’s not the smartest approach. If you adopt a more personalised approach, customers will be more likely to stay in your store/on your app/browsing your website for longer meaning they are more likely to make a purchase. Given this is the name of the game, it’s an outcome worth investing in.

So it’s about generating sales?

Kind of, but it’s also about engaging in a conversation with your customers across multiple platforms, such as social media and web. This is a win-win as your customers get to access content that is relevant and tailored to them based on what they like or aspire to, whilst you are able to build a richer profile of your customers preferences and behaviours.

Anything to watch out for?


Yes, as it goes.

Customers appreciate personalisation but on their own terms, so data profiles can work both for and against you.

A family using a single laptop, for example, wouldn’t all want to see results based on just one of their profiles. Or if personal circumstances have changed, it would be insensitive to use the results of a personalised approach that doesn’t reflect this change, which is complicated as how could you possibly know?

All valid points – anything else?


It’s worth bearing in mind that you could also hinder a customer’s browsing potential by basically suggesting the answer too soon. So it’s a real balance to nudge your customers to what you know matches with their profile without restricting them from interacting with and exploring other areas of your retail offering.

Like many things, personalisation is a brilliant tool to have in your kitbag and the richer your customer data, the more effective it is likely to be. But it shouldn’t be the only thing you use to target increased sales. The trick is to understand the very fine line that will be tolerated by your customers to help their retail experience at an individual and segmented level and then carefully walking this line to create an amazing customer conversation.

 

A Quick Guide to… Omnichannel


Omnichannel is a term that is increasingly used when talking about customer journeys and the way in which retailers (amongst other sectors) are reaching out to their customers. But what does it actually mean? Here’s our quick guide to all things omnichannel.

Learn More

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