How Personalisation Holds the Key to Improve Engagement Benchmarks
Starting from personalisation and how it boosts customer loyalty, we will describe instances of how marketers are leveraging personalisation to meet their customers.
Have you ever wondered why so many brands center their customer engagement strategies around personalisation? It is because personalisation gives customers a sense of belonging and value. The statement may sound a bit philosophical; nevertheless, it is a fact supported by statistics.
When the audience feels like the brand is speaking directly to them, they respond. And that is why personalised content has been able to boost engagement levels and ROI by 3X for more than 95% of companies that opted for it, as per a report published by Forbes.
As per a Personalisation Pulse Check Report published by MoEngage, here is consumers perceive personalisation in Europe-
- 26% customers want recommendations based on thier purchase history
- 22% customers want recommendations based on their interest
- 18% customers want to be referred by their names
Influence of Personalisation on Engagement Benchmarks
In a mobile-first world, personalisation has emerged as a key differentiator. Your customers are observing everything – from the welcome messages to product recommendations. The ability to deliver a relevant experience to your customers seems to be table stakes. Having said that, in this highly competitive world, there is nothing such as a one-size-fits-all approach.
Even though customers do appreciate a positive customer experience, brands must know their boundary line. There is a thin line between sending relevant messages and interfering with customers’ privacy. Doing so would disappoint the customers and result in reduced LTV (Lifetime Value).
However, there’s a thin line between relevant personalised campaigns and being too personal. Every single time marketers think of sending personalised campaigns. With personalisation, the ultimate goal is to boost engagement, increase a customer’s lifetime value (LTV), and subsequently, the ROI.
Factors Facilitating Personalisation Efforts
Centered Database: In the path of delivering a contextual and customised experience, the first prerequisite is having a 360° view of customers’ journey. And that is where the role of a one-view database comes into the picture. A unified customer database enables marketers to understand their customers and their activities across all channels, efficiently.
Mashreq Neo is one of the best examples in the scenario. For the uninitiated, Mashreq has been in the banking business for over 50 years and is among one of the best-performing banks in the UAE due to its commitment to customer experience and consistent product innovation.
In recent years, Mashreq Neo has revolutionised the way customers bank with their smartphones. This was only possible because of a unified database. A centered database enabled the bank to provide a seamless omnichannel experience to itsd customers.
With readily available insights into the customer’s preferences and activity, the bank was able to facilitate a relevant experience, and even predict what they might want at a particular touchpoint.
Source: Engagement Benchmarks
Intelligent Customer Segmentation: As said earlier, there is no concept of one-size-fits-all. And in that context, customer segmentation plays a vital role in personalisation. The customer today is open to sharing personal information with an expectation that brands use this information to provide a frictionless experience.
Segmentation has evolved from just using location and name for personalising communication. In addition to behavioural segmenting customers based on demographics, a complete view into your customers' activities across channels help you predict your customer’s actions and segment based on these predictions.
Usually, the customers are segments based on the following criteria:
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Behavioural Segmentation- Actions, tendencies, and product use habits
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Geographic Segmentation- State, city, town, country
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Psychographic Segmentation- Interests, personality, attitude, values
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Technographic Segmentation- Desktop, mobile, apps, software
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Demographic Segmentation- gender, education, age, marital status, income
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Values-Based Segmentation- Economic value of the specific customer with respect to the business
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Needs-Based Segmentation- Product/Service features must-haves
These seven segmentation models are quite instrumental in the categorisation of your customers into further subgroups. This will, help you effectively personalise your engagement efforts.
A similar model was used by Landmark Retail in the Middle East in an effort to increase app conversion and elevate customer engagement. The segmentation approach helped them categorise their customers into sub-groups. Further, personalised messages through push notifications empowered them to accelerate customer engagement rate. This subsequently resulted in increased app conversion.
Source: Engagement Benchmarks
Data & Analytics: Unified databases, can further be leveraged for AI-driven decision-making. Such decisions would contribute to responding to customer signals instantly.
Brands are inclined towards predictive analytics and models to determine the content type and messages for customers. And the process does not stop there. Further, an advanced analytics platform allows analysing of the impact of AI-driven decisions and customer interventions.
The result obtained helps in delivering the right content to the right customer and through the right channel. Doing so not only results in personalising your communication but also provides a frictionless customer journey.
Conclusion
Customer engagement has been witnessing massive fluctuations in recent years. These fluctuations can be attributed to a lot of factors including technology disruptions, and the pandemic. These elements have not just influenced engagement, but also customer behaviour and spending habits.
Considering the ongoing changes, brands should be providing value to customers at each touchpoint. And in this effort, personalisation has emerged as the key differentiator. From product to marketing, customers are seeking a sense of personalisation in every aspect of their buyers' journey. It is no secret that personalisation and engagement rate goes hand in hand.
The whole idea of personalisation is to provide a tailored experience to the customer. This is only possible with the right insights and adequate delivery of messages at the right time.