Let’s face it: in the modern world of direct marketing, “To whom it may concern” just won’t cut it. Personalisation is a growing global trend – and if you don’t believe us, check out these stats.
Today’s customers expect brands to speak their language and understand their needs – and they are more than willing to meet those brands halfway. According to a recent Accenture survey, 83% of consumers are perfectly happy to share their data if it means they’ll get a more tailored experience.
As the saying goes, “relevance raises response”… and there are many clever and creative ways to make your campaigns more relevant. From getting the language and tone just right to crafting your communication to suit your customer’s specific demographic, each and every personal touch will help you to attract and retain your customers’ attention more effectively.
It’s simple: Better attention equals better retention – and ultimately, better conversion. So, how do you create a campaign that truly captures your customers’ attention? Use these five top tips to get started.
The 5 principles of effective personalisation
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1. Know your audience
The more information you have about your audience, the more personal (and, therefore, effective) your messaging can be. To be more specific, the better your data – and the better your segmentation processes for that data– the better your campaign and, ultimately, the better your results and ROI.
2. Optimise the campaigning process for that audience
Take the time to consider every step of your customer’s journey. What channel suits them best, for example? While some customers respond better to email, others prefer an SMS or even an SMS linked to a hyper-personalised landing page. Consider asking your customers about their preferred channel, and then storing that information as part of their core data. And remember: it’s not just about personalising one part of a specific campaign; it’s about optimising every element of the customer’s experience. There’s no point in having a generic SMS that links to a super-engaging, enriched and interactive landing page – because no one will ever see it. Everything needs to flow, from the data segmentation to the campaign messaging, to the landing page and, ultimately, the overall customer experience.
3. Send smartly
Track your audience’s journey so that you don’t end up over marketing to them, or sending them duplicate or irrelevant SMSes. For example, if Supermarket A has a special deal on Ricoffy and I buy a tin of Ricoffy today, I shouldn’t receive an SMS from them the following day about the same special deal. Setting your exclusion criteria or frequency capping can help with this, as can many other functions on a good SMS platform. Sending smartly is also about sending different messages to different data segments. Leadify has the functionality to intelligently set up multivariate testing, which allows you to test multiple variables at the same time. This will generate a lot of rich data, which you can then use to optimise your messaging and tailor it to suit a given data segment.
4. Be specific
It’s not just about talking to the right person; it’s about being specific in what you offer them. For example, a customer is more likely to respond to an SMS that offers them a specific amount of credit – based on their actual salary – than they are to a generic SMS that offers them an unspecified or standard amount of credit. This principle also extends to the personalisation of landing pages; for example, if you know that your customer is a 45-year-old male with three children, you can adjust the specific look and feel of the landing page to create a more engaging experience.
5. Remember: personalisation also applies to your brand and product
How you talk about your brand or your product should align with who you are talking to. In other words, the tone of your brand and the tone of your customer conversation should carry through.
Clearly, there are many ways to capture – and keep – your customers’ attention, but every box you tick along the way will help close the gap between an SMS and a sale. And when it comes to creating a killer campaign, there is nothing more important than that.