4 Ways to Personalize Your Marketing and Boost Sales

What’s the best way to get someone to pay attention to marketing and advertising? Make it meaningful to them on a personal level. That’s always been true, and today, in our high-tech high-touch world, consumers have come to expect personalized offers. That’s table stakes now.

Studies show that more than 78-percent of consumers engage only with personalized offers. And 68-percent of companies see a lift in closed sales when they personalize offers.

But what’s the best way to add personalization and relevance throughout the customer-acquisition journey? Consider these four key elements to successful personalization:

#1 Dig deeper to get to know prospects.

Don’t just look at your existing data. Ask new questions, pull in data from other parts of your company, and bring in data from third parties to learn more about your targets’ financial or demographic characteristics. For example, it's useful to know:

• Geographic area
• Age bracket
• Debts and assets
• Whether they own or rent their homes
• Whether they have kids

This data can open up new ideas of what to offer. Perhaps even more importantly, it can help you prequalify consumers before offering them credit. The last thing you want to do is offer a customer credit or some other special privilege only to turn them down when they apply.

#2 Anticipate what they’ll want next.

State-of-the-art analytics can help you predict needs and target your offers to purchase-ready consumers. Data analytics can detect patterns and help predict customer journeys based on customer actions that seem unexceptional to human observers. But by overlaying a customer’s unique data on broader segment data, unmet needs and propensities to purchase specific products can be revealed, so that you can proactively offer strategically smart products and services. These powerful analytical capabilities enable you to figure out what your customers want — sometimes before they've even articulated it to themselves.

#3 Speak to customers through their preferred channels.

Collect data from direct engagement across the channels your customers and prospects use. Once you know who uses which channels, you can use customers’ preferred channels to make your offers, so they’re more likely to see your offer and respond. If your company has high-potential customer segments you have engaged offline, extending offers on digital channels can further optimize those relationships.

#4 Create a consistent relationship across channels.

Each customer is an individual, whether they are visiting your brick-and-mortar store or checking out your website on a smartphone. Make sure you power your online campaigns with the same kinds of customer insights and segmentation that inform your offline efforts. Whether you reach out through email or social media or any other channel, your goal is to make them feel like you recognize them and acknowledge their history with you.

Personalize Your Marketing -- From Human Intuition to Data Analytics

Personalizing interactions with customers is the secret to success in today’s competitive marketplace — but it’s not new. Personalization has always helped businesses succeed. Before the development of the digital ecosystem and data analytics, there were observant shop assistants who remembered customers and their preferences. Technology takes that same skill to the next level and enables marketing teams to leverage it on a global scale.

Instead of relying on a few exceptional staff members, you can integrate internal and external data sources and use cutting-edge tools and technology to generate personalized offers that improve customer experiences and the ROI of your marketing dollars. But for all the power of technology, human intuition and experience still matter. For optimal results, partner with firms that have experience forging personalized relationships across the digital ecosystem. You’ll probably need expert advice on:

• Identifying data you want to gather internally or buy from third parties
• Integrating all those data sources
• Asking the right kinds of questions

With the right infrastructure of technology and expertise, your company will be ready to treat each customer as an individual — and maximize the long-term business value of each one by making relevant marketing offers through their preferred channels at the right times. For more information, read our Communications and Digital Media Personalization iPaper or email us: cdm_inquiries@equifax.com.