In recent years, personalized marketing — a strategy in which brands use data and digital technology to send customized messages — has been on the rise. By targeting audiences with custom content, many brands have seen improved numbers of clicks, purchases, downloads, conversions and more.
Digital marketing tactics can be personalized to audiences through analysis of data points on gender, age, location, income level and previous purchases. For example, Amazon uses its data to recommend products based on each individual’s past orders and search histories. The data fuels predictive analytics that anticipate individualized wants, needs and relevant products, then shows the user the most pertinent content.
Personalized marketing is increasing alongside the amount of data we are now able to gather to define and anticipate audience likes, dislikes and purchase likelihood. Lukas Partners recommends the following tactics to customize content:
Gather key data.
Knowing basic information about your target audience will aid in creating successful messaging. First, determine what data you are seeking to gain on target audience members. Then, determine a strategy to obtain the data. People tend to avoid long questionnaires. Consider occasionally asking a few questions and compile data over time. Many organizations find success in defining audiences through occasional surveys delivered through email or another digital medium that drives individuals to a survey tool on a landing page. You also can mine data on your audience’s interests through social media analytics.
Google Analytics is an extremely useful tool to collect data. It can provide valuable information such as the path users follow to your website and the amount of time spent on particular pages. Organizations often create individual campaigns and add tracking codes to URLs called UTMs to gain even more specified data through Google Analytics. You can then use this data — for example — to place display ads on websites consumers visit before landing on your website. The free version of Google Analytics will show data from up to 10 million visits per month.
Create audience personas.
Personas can be developed to represent different segments of your audience. They can be based on demographics like age, gender and location, but they also could take into account interests and pain points. For example, your ideal buyer could be a working mom in her thirties who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who enjoys running and makes $60,000 per year. Once you’ve learned this information about her, you can better serve her content she’ll find relevant. This could include multiple personas, depending on defined key audiences.
Map out your personalized content.
Customized marketing works best when it’s consistent from the first interaction to the final decision. Sending targeted social media ads to users who viewed your website content can keep your brand top of mind. Another way to generate conversions is by offering special discounts or free trials to target audience members. By placing these incentives on websites and apps that often lead users to your website (which you can find on Google Analytics), results could increase with the personalization.
Another starting point of personalizing your marketing efforts is through email. Personalized emails increase open and click-through rates. Adding the recipient’s name to the subject line is an easy way to start the personalization process. You also can customize based on other data, such as location, gender or previous purchases. Personalized emails are successful because recipients find them more relevant. To the recipient, an email customized with a name and/or relevant products can be more meaningful than a generic email message.
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