How Marketing Technology Creates Remarkable Personalized Customer Experiences

Meet Evisu, a premium denim and lifestyle brand with a global presence. Like all global brands, their goal is to engage their customers with the right message, at the right time, through the right channel and with content that’s relevant and timely. They have a very small online team, and managing all their digital marketing needs, specifically, SEM and Social channels, is an overwhelming task. The brand turned to Albert, the first artificial intelligence marketing platform for the enterprise. Albert removes the complexities of modern marketing by performing many of the time-consuming, manual tasks which humans are unable to perform at the speed and scale required for efficient and effective consumer interactions.

Before using Albert, Evisu was running campaigns on a global scale, with a distinct lack of specific geo-targeting. Albert was able to pinpoint which countries and specific cities they could get the most engagement and allowed them to redirect their efforts to targeted regions. More importantly, Albert discovered never-before-know high-value audiences. For example, Albert determined that Facebook users with the occupation “Engineer” engaged 300 percent more with Evisu’s ads than other Facebook users. This led to a significant boost in conversions on social campaigns, where they had previously had little success.

“AI systems don’t need to create personas; they find real customers in the wild by determining what actual online behaviors have the highest probability of resulting in conversions, and then finding potential buyers online who exhibit these behaviors.” – Brad Power

There’s little doubt that AI will transform marketing as we know it. As new technology emerges, it’s more important than ever for marketers to get the basics right. According to a research report by OneSpot and Marketing Insider Group, nearly half of consumers won’t spend time with branded content if it’s not relevant to their interests and 88% of consumers say that personally relevant content improves how they feel about a brand. In other words, personalized content has become more of a necessity rather than just a nice touch.

Here are 4 simple ways that marketers can create remarkable, personalized customer experiences with Marketing Automation.

1. Use the customer’s name whenever possible

As Dale Carnegie famously says in his best-seller, 10 Ways to Win Friends and Influence People, “Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

It is important to include the consumer’s name whenever possible and wherever appropriate. Landing pages, emails, advertisements, customer service, and social media are all opportunities to use the customer’s name. Marketing automation technology makes this level of customization simple and scalable. You should pre-populate the contact’s first name in emails and/or subject lines, on landing pages, in forms, and during chat interactions. It’s a small touch that leaves a favorable impression.

For returning customers, you should auto-fill forms with any form fields that are known. For example, if you previously downloaded our Transformational Marketing ebook, when you visit the Conditions for Success Checklist at the end of this post, your email and first/last name will be auto-populated in the form. This leads to less form fill fatigue and a much better user experience. 

2. Recommend content based on previous engagements with your brand

A study from Temple University found that when customers are suggested products based on previous purchases, 98 percent of customers experienced positive feelings. Positive associations with a brand make customers more likely to engage, purchase, and advocate on behalf of your brand. This leads to an increase in lead generation and an increase in sales. By sending relevant content to the right person at the right time, these personalized customer experiences help drive more purchases and conversions. Additionally, personalized emails have 29 percent higher open rates and 41 percent higher click rates than emails without any personalization.

3. When in doubt, toss it out

If you’re in doubt about the validity of any of your data, just skip it. It’s better to be impersonal than blatantly incorrect. If you refer to a customer by the wrong name or send content that is not accurately personalized to them in your marketing efforts, you could potentially turn them off and lose that sale. Most marketing automation platforms allow you to indicate a default field if data isn’t available. For example, if there’s no first name you can input “Friend”, which is slightly more personalized than “Hello ,”. 

4. Experiment and double down on what works

It’s imperative that you take small steps to ensure personalization is correct and located in the right places. Take the time to see how your customers respond to the content you are sending to better understand what works and what doesn’t work. Conduct experiments to see which personalization efforts yield the greatest return and double down on those. One of the most important metrics to test is timing. In the Evisu example above, Albert discovered that a high volume of conversions were coming from returning users, so he automatically created a campaign dedicated to driving the customers back to the site. This increased direct conversions by 25 percent, in addition to significantly boosting delayed conversions.

The Marketing Automation Conditions for Success

Before embarking on your marketing automation journey, your organization must have the Conditions for Success in place. Up until now, there has been no explicit, formally organized and broadly shared view of what the conditions for success include and what is involved in setting and maintaining them on a Marketing Automation implementation project. It has been strictly a matter of individual project management interpretation, experience and a little bit of art.

Our goal is to bring greater rigor, discipline, and science to help companies assure that the conditions for success are in place before, during and after they embark on their Marketing Automation journey. The TopRight “Conditions for Success Diagnostic” provides a concrete way to evaluate your current situation and then take appropriate action to create and sustain the conditions for success for a successful Marketing Automation implementation.

You’ll answer 5 key questions about your Marketing Automation initiative:

1. Is your marketing automation initiative tied to explicit value for the business?
2. Is your team fully aligned?
3. Do you have sufficient sponsorship and accountability?
4. What is the level of organizational commitment?
5. Are the project scope, team and time in balance?

Download the Conditions for Success Diagnostic

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