That’s a million dollar question for all businesses, and usually, it leads to brainstorming and the creation of an avatar that represents a fictional but completely ideal customer. The problem is, that person often doesn’t really exist. What if, instead, you could find out who your customers actually are, using a variety of data points, and then market to them based on their actual interests, needs, and desires? If that‘s what you’re already doing, you’ve stumbled upon personalized marketing. In today’s era of big data, there’s no reason not to take full advantage of everything you can find out about your customers. It allows you to give them more relevant offers that they are much more likely to engage with. Get smart with personalized marketing this year by following these simple tips:
Know the Benefits of Personalized Marketing
Before you dive into a new investment (like digging deep with personalized marketing), it helps to know why it benefits you. The primary goal of all marketing is to provide the right customer with an opportunity to buy the right product or service at the right price. Bringing these three things together – a person, the product, and the appropriate price – was very difficult in the past. However, today we know more than ever about what people love, what they hate, and what they ignore. Using this data helps you provide targeted products and service to people based on what’s important to them. This eliminates wasted time and builds loyalty toward your brand. Individuals want to be treated as one-of-a-kind, not part of a “marketing group.” When you personalize your offers, you’ll improve customer experience, driver higher revenues, and help your clientele have a consistent experience with your brand across all online platforms.
Ethically Track Customer Behavior
The foundation of personalization is getting a significant amount of data about your customers. This can be done ethically and transparently – don’t feel like you have to resort to underhanded tactics. Doing this requires a lot of technical know-how. You’ll need an SEO professional if you don’t have an in-house guru. You’ll want to use Google Analytics to understand who visits your website and why. You will also need to find out how customers behave on your apps, website, social media pages, and any other digital properties you manage. Make sure the technology you choose to use is well-suited for the mobile era since 52.2% of all worldwide online traffic came from mobile devices last year – a number that continues to grow as we move forward.
Analyze the Data
Once you have the information, it’s time to turn it into something useful. There are two ways to go about using your data to increase personalization.
Better Avatars
First, you can use the data you collected to create more focused and accurate avatars than you’ve ever had before. Instead of guessing or assuming things about people, you can have the facts. Is your primary customer a female between 35 – 40 with two kids? Or were you surprised to find your consumer base is different? While you’re creating avatars, you’ll probably notice that you have secondary customer groups that are larger than you thought. You may have been overlooking them in the past, but not anymore. For instance, you might find that single dads from 28 – 35 are big buyers of your product as well. Use these new avatars to create more accurate and more targeted marketing campaigns than ever before. You’ll serve clientele better and boost your bottom line.
Individual Targeting
The second way to use the data is more challenging but even more targeted. Find a way – using cookies, for instance, or another tracking – to serve individual customers with specific ads and recommendations. Doing this usually takes powerful software and a bit of a light touch. After all, people are likely to be spooked by your brand if you are too good at predicting what they’re looking for. However, when done well, individual targeting can result in on-target Facebook ads, sidebar ads, and greater responsibilities as your potential (or current) consumer travels around the Internet. Over time, these impressions add up, making your targeted customer much more likely to buy your product or service.
Work With Professionals
There are very few companies who have enough power in-house to cover all of these bases. You need tech gurus, data gurus, and software gurus, all in one place, focused on your marketing. That’s a big expense for just one area of your company. Instead, focus on the business you’re in and let a professional search engine optimization company like Local SEO Search take care of the heavy lifting. Hire people whose entire business is to help you succeed. It’s the best way to maximize your personalized marketing efforts this year. Ready to get started? Contact SEO experts today!
