These days, the ability for businesses to automatically deliver tailored content to the various groups of visitors who visit their website is a challenge, particularly if these efforts are meant to drive long-term loyalty. But figuring out ways to use this strategy to your advantage can eventually pay big dividends.
In fact, nearly 9 in 10 organizations see their overall marketing efforts pay off when they implement what’s referred to as “real-time personalization,” and nearly 1 in 4 companies see improvements to their marketing efforts to the tune of 20 percent, according to a recent Evergage, Inc survey. But while 77 percent of marketers view real-time personalization as a crucial element to their overall marketing efforts, 60 percent experience challenges implementing it effectively.
Successfully implementing real-time personalization requires deploying an effective strategy. Here are three ways companies are putting real-time personalization into practice to build long-term customer loyalty.
1. Personalize Your Marketing
One of the most popular real-time personalization strategies used by some of today’s more successful companies is through what’s referred to as “lookalike advertising,” a strategy that helps companies find more people who look like your current customers. In particular, companies like Facebook are successful on this front when they can effectively analyze the demographics of their current customers, while simultaneously finding new target audiences who share the same profile.
Another popular personalized marketing strategy is what’s referred to as “dynamic content generation,” which delivers personalized content to specific visitors of your website and/or social media pages based on their individual data. Ultimately, deploying a strategy like this will help certain customers overcome the frustration they experience when companies continue to deliver them irrelevant content and offers that don’t speak to their interests.
2. Customize the Shopping Experience
Another popular real-time personalization strategy is using customers’ digital data to optimize the shopping experience. In fact, 8 in 10 marketers who employ real-time personalization use customer data to help build relationships by improving customers’ in-store experience, according to an eMarketer survey.
One way to optimize the online shopping experience is to set up “recommendation engines,” which highlight specific products based on customers’ past purchase and browsing history. Amazon, a pioneer of this technology, generates 35 percent of its sales from recommendations, illustrating how powerful recommendation engines can be for cultivating repeat business.
Moreover, more than 15 percent of all website visitors buy recommended products, according to Forrester Research. To that end, your business can also optimize customers’ overall shopping experience by extending them real-time discount offers as a loyalty reward.
3. Provide Real-time Omnichannel Support
Another key real-time personalization strategy is providing real-time omnichannel support. The most popular form of real-time support is live chat. However, real-time support requests can come in over any channel. For instance, 32 percent of customers who contact brands for support through social media expect a response within a half hour, and 42 percent expect a response within an hour, research by The Social Habit shows.
This makes it imperative for your real-time support strategy to employ an omnichannel approach. The most efficient way to achieve this is to use a cloud contact center solution, which provides a single interface your team can use to field support requests from various channels. To assist your team in providing real-time support, you can use your cloud contact platform to integrate automated tools such as chatbots and IVR, which can automatically field routine issues, while flagging inquiries that require live agent support. This combination of automated and human support reduces customer wait time, thereby boosting satisfaction and loyalty.
Personalized marketing, customized shopping experiences and omnichannel support are three ways to implement real-time personalization effectively. Applying these strategies can help you deliver your customers more relevant content, more customized offers and faster customer support, thereby boosting satisfaction and building loyalty for your brand.
