Personalizing Brand Stories in Ecommerce

I'm a crazy person at Christmas. I love the season and everything that it stands for. One of my favorite traditions is tree decorating - our home has 16 7' and above trees. All themed and decorated to the max. While decorating this year, I was thinking through a personalization strategy for a client. It dawned on me that, at first blush, each of the trees was very similar - they were all green, and the branches, even though they were of different varieties, were essentially the same. But what makes each tree come to life is the theme, decor, ribbon, ornaments, and embellishments. In other words, each tree has its own personalization. Suddenly, the “sameness” was insignificant, and the singularity of each tree sparkled like a Christmas star. Which brings me to the parallel to marketing. In a low-loyalty landscape, non-personalized communications pose a business risk. Personalization, on the other hand, caters to individual needs and preferences and accentuates the human and emotional aspects of a brand. The benefits of Personalization are crystal clear: Enhanced customer satisfaction Strengthened brand loyalty Increased sales and conversion rates But, like decorating a tree, there's a delicate balance. Key trends in this space include predictive analytics, omnichannel Personalization, and hyper-personalization driven by AI and machine learning. 🎄 Personalization spans across industries: From the web to social media, eCommerce, and beyond, algorithms and data are harnessed to provide tailored experiences. User data fuel these customized interactions, including behavior, preferences, location, and device data. 🎄 It's all about the customer experience: Customers love relevant offers that cater to their unique needs and preferences. However, balancing Personalization and maintaining your core brand identity and values is essential. 🎄 Responsibility is paramount: Leverage customer data ethically to enable Personalization without compromising privacy. When done right, Personalization strengthens customer relationships while upholding your brand promise. Focus on relevance while nurturing customer trust. In the marketing world, just as in my Christmas wonderland, Personalization is the star that makes everything shine.  #Personalization #Marketing #CustomerAcquisition

📲 I spent over 6 years beating the drum that SMS is the ultimate relationship-building channel for eCommerce. I still believe that to be true today… but there’s something I believe is still wrecking that reality for most eCommerce stores… 👉 It’s the lack of personalization. And I love what the team at Yotpo is doing to change that. Truth is, delivering the right message at the right time is literally what SMS was built for.  After all, it’s the most instantaneous form of communication. We live in the most technologically advanced time in commerce with literally dozens and sometimes hundreds of unique data points about a customer. Yet the channel for most brands has failed to deliver a 1:1 relationship with the consumer. If you're like me, you've probably gotten a text, or several, that have made you go, “This has ZERO relevance to me.” Somehow the SMS experience for most still feels like we’re being pushed through a conveyor belt, being shown campaigns that lack relevancy, and post-purchase automations that feel downright used car salesman-esque. And it always leads to a text from the subscriber sending back those 4 dreaded characters every brand hopes a subscriber won't. STOP 🛑 But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are 3 core areas upon which personalization in SMS is built. Identification: The crux of personalization. This is what creates the subscriber record and appends engagement to a profile inside your CRM. Zero-party data: Preference data captured from things like quizzes, preference centers, and forms. First-party data: Things like what you purchased, where you’re located, your previous interactions with the SMS campaign, etc…. From these 3 things, you the marketer have everything that you need to never send another irrelevant message again through segmenting with this data. 🐈 Example 1: A shopper takes a quiz (with Digioh of course) telling you they have 2 senior cats and prefer to feed them wet food. They’ve just told you what they want their entire customer journey to be about. Thus, this is what you should promote to them. Not generic campaigns, or worse, campaigns about dogs. 🐕 🏃♂️ Example 2: You’re an outdoor store and I viewed and purchased running shoes from you. Don’t send me promotions about skiing. Instead, show me more of what I engaged with and told YOU that I liked. Running items! THIS is what develops the 1:1 relationship between brand and consumer when a shopper can take an action and then the brand in turn creates a subsequent positive interaction. Showing a customer more of what they tell you they like is the quickest way to win them over and avoid the dreaded “stop” reply. My friends at Yotpo GET IT. And I’m so thrilled to see them doubling down on helping more brands to send the right message at the right time. 👏 This is the way SMS was always meant to be! Wipe away that customer frown with the right message. Check out more here: https://lnkd.in/d7vE3qqr