Personalization Myths and Truths: Achieve the Right Growth

Personalization Myths that Prevent Progression

Myth #1: Personalization is ineffective

Although personalizing customer experiences don’t happen overnight, there is proof that it’s worthwhile doing. According to a study McKinsey, personalization can:

• reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50%
• lift revenue by 5-15%
• increase marketing spend efficiency by 10-30%

Myth #2: Personalization takes long to implement

Taking ownership over personalizing customer interactions is not an easy task, but it’s certainly not difficult to implement. Enabling content triggers and hands-on guidance on different platforms for individual groups is also easy enough. There are multiple automation tools to help you set all of these parameters.

Myth #3: You should use personalization for ads only

Personalized advertising used to be known as interest-based advertising and it was used to improve advertising relevancy for users. The same principle applies to more than ads and emails.

Personalization should be included in every channel that an organization uses.

Myth #4: Every personalization technique works the same

Not every strategy or tools works the same for everyone. For instance, demographics can be an important metric for a small local company, but not for a competitor in a  different part of the world.

The first step in personalizing customer journeys is to ask yourself what type of action you want your customer to make and guide them towards it. The customer journey has to be relevant and appropriate to him. During the journey, you need to add value and understanding at every stage.

Personalization Truths that Bring Growth

Truth #1: Customers want personalization to get discounts

According to RetailTouchPoints, more than 50% of consumers are willing to share information on products they like to get personalized discounts.

Although it’s critical to capture as much data as possible to create super-personalized offers,
don’t be more intrusive than your consumers expect.

Truth #2: Digital businesses invest in personalized strategies

A new Forrester study shows how businesses need to evolve through personalization. In their view, this is moving from tactical segmentation to strategic individualization.

However, not many companies have succeeded to reach a level of maturity. Making the move to personalization means understanding data, gathering specific information, and delivering contextual and valuable experiences.

Truth #3: Personalization brings a higher ROI

Personalization has proven to increase loyalty, retention, and conversion rates.

There is no doubt that segmenting and personalizing offers and messaging based on all customer interactions will bring more results than poorly made targeting.

A few ideas to start personalization is by applying it to emails, ad retargeting and remarketing, and
text messaging.

Truth #4: Customers expect connected journeys

76% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments, yet 54% say it generally feels like sales, service, and marketing teams don’t share information.

A customer journey has multiple touchpoints with different departments and team members. Consistency in customer service ensures positive customer experiences and long-lasting relationships with the brand.