Boost the effectiveness of your marketing with personalised customer relations!
Personalising customer relations is one of the best practices in customer experience.
Not only does it make it possible to satisfy consumers who have become more demanding, it also helps to build long-term customer loyalty.
In this guide, we'll look at how to make the most of personalisation to boost your marketing... and your sales 💣!
Customer relationship personalisation: definition
Customer relationship personalisation refers to a marketing strategy aimed at offering a unique experience to each individual, according to their preferences and needs.
It involves :
- collecting and analysing customer data to better understand :
- their buying habits ;
- their preferences
- their behaviour;
- use this information to individualise interactions with them.
💡 Companies often use technologies such as predictive analytics and machine learning to identify patterns and trends. In this way, they create targeted offers and messages for each individual. For example, an e-commerce site might recommend products similar to those a customer has previously purchased, or send special offers aligned with their interests.
Personalising customer relations offers a number of benefits, such as
- Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty,
- increased sales and profits
- Reducing the cost of acquiring new customers,
- differentiation from the competition.
☝️ However, be sure to operate with complete transparency to avoid this personalisation work being perceived as too intrusive or inappropriate, particularly when it comes to collecting consumers' personal information.
Why personalise customer relations?
Control the uniqueness of the customer to avoid losing control of costs
By personalising the customer relationship, your company can gain better control over costs in a number of ways.
Firstly, a personalised experience improves customer loyalty, making them more likely to return and make additional purchases. And that reduces your cost of acquisition! What's more, satisfied customers are more likely to recommend you to their friends and family, reducing your marketing and advertising costs.
What's more, personalising your customer relations means that you can target your offers and messages more precisely. The result is much more relevant communications with a higher conversion rate.
Finally, personalised marketing enables companies to optimise their operations. By analysing customer data and gaining a better understanding of their preferences, they can improve the efficiency of processes such as stock management, production and delivery.
Stand out from the crowd and establish your brand image
Personalising relationships helps companies to stand out from their competitors. By showing that they care about their customers and always listen to them, they strengthen their brand image and reputation.
They forge genuine emotional bonds with their customers, while setting themselves apart by offering products and services that are genuinely tailored to their customers' needs.
What's more, this marketing technique encourages communication around brand values, at a time when people are increasingly concerned about corporate commitments (environment, product quality, etc.).
How can the customer relationship be personalised throughout the 8 stages of the buying cycle?
Salespeople are aware that consumers go through a series of predetermined actions before making a purchase.
In other words, although digital channels can accentuate an individual's compulsive nature, buyers take predictable actions.
These actions establish a framework for retailers to design personalised messages and send them at the appropriate stage of the buying cycle.
Here they are in detail 👉
Stage 1: Identifying the buyer's needs and wishes
- ✅ Situation : a specific need emerges in the consumer. This need may :
- be pragmatic (for example, their television no longer works and needs replacing) ;
- respond to a trend (for example, a fashionable item they really want to own).
- 🚀 Opportunity: retailers are specifically designing awareness campaigns to respond to this relatively fuzzy stage in the buying cycle. At this point, the customer is only beginning to think about making a purchase. It therefore seems difficult to establish a personal relationship, especially if they are a prospect.
However, it is possible to use multi-channel promotion and engagement programmes to increase exposure to your products. Send easily memorable messages and engage in conversations with potential users, prospects and existing customers.
Step 2: The buyer's search for information
- ✅ Situation: The Internet offers a wide range of tools for customers to find out about the qualities of each product and the reputation of sellers. These tools include in particular:
- search engines
- industry-specific communities
- rating and review sites
- social networks.
- 🚀 Opportunity: at this stage of the buying cycle, you have the opportunity to create several marketing exposure elements. These include paid search, advertising, webinars and white papers. You are also advised to implement inbound marketing and SEO techniques to move up the rankings of search engines such as Google and Bing.
To respond in real time to customer searches, identify the common problems that your products help to solve. Then, through your content, link these problems to the keywords that customers are likely to type in to find an answer to that question.
Then deploy marketing actions designed to increase your online visibility, such as paid advertising campaigns like Ads.
Another technique is to develop information materials, such as webinars and white papers, focusing on the topics your potential buyers want to know more about before making a purchase. This is called inbound marketing.
Stage 3: Assessing the value of the product to the customer
- ✅ Situation: Internet users often compare items and their prices thanks to :
- comparators such as Google shopping, MySmartPrice or shopping.com,
- more specific comparators (by sector) such as hotels.com and trivago.
- 🚀 Opportunity: customers are more involved at this stage. They study the features and price of each offer and thus shorten the list of products to be preferred. At this stage, become more "personal" in your communications. For example, offer buyers free samples. This way, they can find out more about your products and try them out before making their choice.
To persuade customers, why not enhance your messages with promotions?
- 👉 In B2C, use discounts or special offers (e.g. 20% off the next purchase or no delivery charges).
- 👉 In B2B, customise certain products to match a company's identity and brand, or offer discounts for certain quantities or orders.
Stage 4: The purchasing decision
- ✅ Situation: the consumer selects the desired product or service and then carries out the transaction.
- In B2C, this transaction generally takes the form of payment for a shopping basket or, in some cases, a sales contract.
- In B2B, it may take the form of examining and negotiating a contract that includes a commitment to deliver goods or services and specifies the terms of payment.
- 🚀 Opportunity: here, deliver personalised messages based on best practice in your sector. For example, a customer looking for a spare part will receive information on how to use it in order to reveal its full potential.
You can also expose these new customers to communities of existing customers who will accompany them through the integration process and beyond.
This stage also involves optimal internal collaboration within your organisation, so you can ensure that the teams responsible for pre-sales services and delivery are aligned.
- 👉 In B2C, fulfilment teams are required to check that certain conditions, including returns and warranties, have been implemented.
- 👉 In B2B, a clear delivery commitment should be drawn up reflecting the customer's expectations.
Step 5: After-sales service
- ✅ Situation: companies offer customers an after-sales service that meets several objectives, for example:
- product activation,
- return,
- repair, etc.
- 🚀 Opportunity: the sales cycle does not end with the purchase. The after-sales service has the opportunity to offer customers other products or services, or to move upmarket.
This stage is particularly important for customisation efforts. Distributors have shown their customers the way in the early stages of awareness-raising, and have got to know them. They now have information on consumer demographics, psychographics and behaviour. What's more, they have established a relationship with them.
Thanks to this large volume of data, the marketing teams can design campaigns and carry out specific actions for the customers in the company's database. In this way, they can develop tailored recommendations, special offers and other appropriate content.
Stage 6: Comments and customer reviews
- ✅ Situation: consumers often share their opinions on the customer experience. For example, they respond to satisfaction surveys sent to them or leave a comment on social networks and other rating and review sites.
- 🚀 Opportunity: salespeople can communicate directly with their customers and collect feedback on its products and brands.
Always respond to customer feedback and personalise your interactions with them as much as possible. And if they are unhappy, react immediately to ease tensions and prevent negative impressions from spreading quickly.
Step 7: Building customer loyalty
- ✅ Situation: consumers who have enjoyed your products or services and/or had a positive experience will become attached to you. For example, they will be more inclined to buy a more expensive item if they are reassured about the quality of your offer. This will increase their loyalty.
- 🚀 Opportunity: devise sophisticated initiatives to strengthen your relationship with your loyal customers.
- In B2C, offer loyalty programmes offering free benefits or discounts.
- In B2B, marketing teams organise reward ceremonies, advisory boards, conferences or events dedicated to certain customer communities
These initiatives make your best customers feel appreciated and rewarded.
The aim of real-time personalisation is to guarantee this kind of favourable outcome.
Step 8: Product promotion by brand ambassadors
- ✅ Situation: satisfied customers tend to share their experiences in person, online, via review sites or social networks. In this way, they direct prospects to their salesperson when the opportunity arises.
- 🚀 Opportunity: develop referral programmes where you give discounts or credits to your best ambassadors.
Think influencers! In exchange for remuneration or even samples, they will share their feedback with their community.
Tools for personalising customer relations
With real-time customer personalisation, you can familiarise yourself with your customers and make them more aware of your offer.
But to lay the foundations for getting to know your customers better and addressing them more effectively, you need to use technology.
Several types of software are commonly used for this purpose. For example :
- CRM, designed to manage customer relations. They centralise all the information relating to your customers, past interactions with your company, preferences and purchasing behaviour. All valuable resources for more effective personalisation!
- Data analysis tools. These solutions are used to analyse the data needed to identify trends, patterns and buying behaviour. They also make it easier to segment customers according to their preferences.
- Marketing automation platforms. With this software, you can create personalised marketing campaigns based on the information collected. The tool then automates the sending of personalised e-mails, special offers, product recommendations, etc.
🛠️ Software example:
Bloomreach is an omnichannel marketing solution designed to optimise your customers' e-commerce experience, and thus boost your conversion rate. Featuring artificial intelligence technology, it personalises each purchase journey, connecting your customers to your products at the right time and in the right place. What's more, the platform is easy to use (with a high degree of automation) and you benefit from a tailored offer and support from the Bloomreach teams.
Personalised customer relations: in a nutshell!
On the Internet, information is communicated freely, using a variety of tools such as search engines, blogs, rating sites, social networks and so on. Consumers therefore have a multitude of sources of information at their disposal at every stage of the buying cycle.
Real-time personalisation helps sales staff to listen to customers and prospects, identify their interests and preferences, and understand and map their behaviour. They study their individual characteristics and then accompany them throughout the sales tunnel.
As a result, these same customers and prospects are more inclined to buy, or even repurchase, from a distributor who is genuinely seeking to improve their experience.
Article translated from French