Take a look into your customers’ minds – the importance of data and personalization
Why are you best friends with your best friends?
Because you’re the person that knows most about them. You took and accumulated years worth of data about your friends. Naturally, you know how to react, talk, give advice or come up with solutions for them.
This is exactly what you want to achieve with your customers we name it ‘data customer personalization business’.
To establish and maintain a long-lasting relationship, all you need is data. The more you have data, the better relationships or partnerships you can have.
In this article, we will show you which components of data are so important and why.
You will learn about:
- User experience
- Data
- Personalization
- Data models
1. Customer Experience: 5 ways to improve overall experience.
In order to successfully market your product or service, you need to understand what your customers want and need. These are the main things needed for people to engage with your brand and buy your product or service. If you leave a gap between your customers’ wants and needs and what you offer, you are allowing your competitors to gain an advantage and steal your customers.
Your customers have needs, but they also have wants. This is where you, as a business, come in. You can shape your customers wants by social influences, past experiences and consumption behaviour. How?
- Do research. Use surveys, focus groups, simple conversations to understand if people have a need for your product or service.
- Use analytical insights to develop a better picture of which types of offers are likely to generate the most customer responses.
- Take customer input into consideration. Address complaints to improve customer service problems as efficiently as possible.
- Keep a close eye on your competitors. They can influence your customers’ expectations.
- Deliver quality customer support. Offer real time support.
Of course, digitalization has made a huge impact on the evolving expectation of customers. If businesses don’t keep up with the technological advancements or their customers’ expectations, they risk losing their relationships and financial support.
Customers have always had expectations, such as quality service and fair pricing. But as technology evolved so did their expectations. These expectations are now much higher, including proactive service, personalized interactions, and connected experiences across digital channels.
Consumers no longer just want to listen to what they’re told or trust what ads tell them. They want to do their own research online to find out more about a product, or its alternatives.
They expect:
- Connected journeys
- Personalization
- Innovation
- Data protection (trust!)
Marketeers know that the key to growth are relationships. And this is where data comes in.
2. Customer data: what should you know about your customers?
Customer experience should be the number one priority to brands. Why? Because it ensures high customer loyalty and retention.
What information do you need?
- Personal information
- Previous interactions and purchases
- Number of days since last purchase
- Recent offers they received and their reaction
- Customer’s transaction with the brand
Customer data allows a full view of the customer profile, their preferences and evolution of the relationship. It also allows businesses to see what customers want at a specific moment in order to satisfy their needs.
You must be thinking, DUH, I know all this. I’m sure you do. However, customers are increasingly more worried about data protection.
Brands need to be increasingly more careful about how they collect their audience’s data as punishment for breaking GDPR regulation is harsh. However, customers also need to know what falls under GDPR law and what brands can and cannot do.
Let me hit you with a little bit of statistics:
- 67% of all consumers have taken steps to defend their personal data, by limiting tracking or providing false information to companies.
- Brands that are up front about how they use information to target ads can boost engagement levels by up to 40%.
- 75% of customers surveyed are more willing to share personal data with a brand they trust.
- 80% of consumers will share a non-required piece of data for rewards points.
- 80% of respondents said they would be comfortable sharing personal information directly with a brand for the purposes of personalizing marketing messages. But just 16.7% said they would be OK with sharing this type of information through third parties.
The data above tells us a few important things: first, that customers are more aware of and concerned about their data privacy than ever before. And second, that they are still willing to trust brands with their data—as long as there’s something in it for them.
So, what’s next? If your company isn’t already focused on first-party data collection and storing, which is GDPR compliant, it’s time to start. Building customer trust, collecting data, and using it to provide the personalized experiences customers crave is only going to become more important as time goes on.
Contact us if you are interested in learning more about data collection and personalization.
If you’re looking for more details about data, check out our data collection and personalization article.
At the end of the day, when it comes to data, it’s not about what you know, it’s about what you do with the data.
This brings us to the IOS 14 update and the impact it’s had on Facebook ads.
- For marketeers, this means real time data collection and tracking is becoming a much harder and time-consuming process.
- For customers, the update provides an opt-out of data tracking option on the Facebook ad, giving some control of data back to them.
3. Personalization: how to tailor your message.
Customers expect businesses to provide a personalized experience, especially when it comes to online shopping. The biggest turn off for customers is when a business doesn’t understand who they are and what they want.
With the rise of digitalization and AI (artificial intelligence), it is easier than ever to personalize the customer journey. This means creating customized offers and messages.
Retail
The concept of retail personalization is a bit of a dinosaur right now in Covid times as it predates digitalization. Of course, with the rise of digital came computerized stereotyping.
We can describe the stages of e-commerce personalization of customer experience in three generations.
- Marketing segmentation: judging customers on a few general details
- Culture of online shopping: suggesting items based on previous purchases and viewed items
- Detailed data-based personalization: retailers are looking at specific preferences that differ individuals from the group
Marketing
As said before, customers are now more inclined to do their own research rather than trust reviews or ads.
When evaluating the type of personalization you should use, these are things you need to consider:
- Do you have a unified view of your customer profile and behavioral data? This ensures the right content is delivered at the right time to drive conversions.
- Do you target your audiences in real-time? This will ensure you maximize value on every customer interaction.
Recently, personalization has evolved into something called individualization.
But wait, what does that mean?
- Sending content created specifically for the individual not the group they fall into
- Based on past purchases and browsing history
- Allows you to gain better insights into individuals’ behavior to better understand their needs and wants
When personalizing, you also have to think about generational differences (the next figure should help with that).
4. Customer Profiles: 5 different data and customer models.
When companies want to capture customer profiles, they use demographic data to segment customers. These segments are then used to create marketing and sales programs and to create service solutions.
This is where things get slippery for business owners and marketers. The only way we can identify and meet psychological needs is by asking the customer directly, or studying their behaviors and using our findings to make educated guesses.
Big Five Personality Traits
In order to segment customers, different data models are used. The biggest and most known one is The Big Five Personality Traits (OCEAN) model.
According to the OCEAN Model, there are only five main components of personality:
[O] Openness to experience. (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)
[C] Conscientiousness. (efficient/organized vs. easy-going/careless)
[E] Extroversion. (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)
[A] Agreeableness. (friendly/compassionate vs. challenging/detached)
[N] Neuroticism. (sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident)
Unlike other models that sort individuals into categories, the Big Five Model puts each personality trait on a spectrum. Individuals are ranked on a scale between the two extreme ends.
Many organisations use employee scores to determine cultural fit, in addition to building teams that have similar personality traits. Some even provide their staff with results and create advice on how to communicate with different personalities.
Marketeers are most known for using the OCEAN model. When combined with demographics, it helps understand audiences and what they like based on their personality traits.
Even though it is extremely useful, the model has its challenges. A common criticism of the OCEAN model, as well as other data models, is that they are too vague and do not possibly cover the entire scope of psychographic data.
Bottom line
Building customer trust, collecting data, and using it to provide the personalized experiences customers crave is only going to become more important as time goes on.
On the other hand, customer data will become increasingly more difficult to obtain. This is why data models are the new trend in data personalization.