In the last few years you may have heard about the new hype in marketing: hyper-personalisation. Though it may sound like a buzzword, we aren’t just using it for the sake of it. We believe that hyper-personalisation is the present and future of marketing. Let us tell you why.

 

Personalisation in marketing.

The concept of personalisation within marketing has gained significant traction in the past years. And for good reason: personalised experiences have become a basic customer expectation. Research has shown that up to 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions. 

Personalisation is not only something customers should want; 90% of businesses that apply personalised content see substantial benefits such as an increase in conversion percentages (Google and destination analysis). Businesses that are successful in the execution of personalised marketing see 8x the return on investment on marketing spend, and lift sales by 10% or more. In fact, those that excel in it see 40% more revenue than the average player.

The next step forward: hyper-personalisation

Hyper-personalisation is, as Salesforce calls it, “the next step forward”. It’s not just about showing the customer personalised and relevant content via their preferred communication channel, as is the case with personalisation. Rather, hyper-personalisation raises the bar further and targets the customer individually, essentially holding a one-on-one conversation with each customer across all communication channels.

Utilising real-time behavioural data and AI to inform decisions throughout the journey – from start to finish –  the aim is to provide a data-driven, streamlined and highly relevant experience for the customer at each (micro)moment within the customer journey. 

Though the notion of personalised marketing is understood quite well by many businesses and organisations, it is not always put into practice. Let’s start by identifying some common practices that are best to avoid in marketing.

Different messaging per channel

Customers expect consistent and personalised experiences across channels. However, results of a recent survey revealed that less than 1 in 4 businesses have the technology to deliver this, with one of the key challenges being the silos within departments and legacy infrastructure. As today’s consumers move rapidly from channel to channel and device to device – a phenomenon exacerbated during Covid – data is being spread across systems within organisations, making it more important than ever to find a way to centralise it.

Hyper-personalisation in practice: examples

Spotify

Let’s take Spotify for example, a frontrunner when it comes to hyper-personalisation. Their popular annual review, ‘Spotify Wrapped’, offers customers an experience that features personalised, data-driven and editorially curated content, such as a playlist with their Top Songs of the year and personalised podcast episodes and songs featuring their top artists.

Even more recently, in 2021, Spotify launched the ‘Only You’ in-app experience, which celebrates the users’ personal listening style through unique experiences such as ‘Your Audio Birth Chart’ and ‘Your Dream Dinner Party’.

Personalising in this way is highly effective; research has shown that 61% of consumers gain a better feeling about a company when they are addressed personally as compared to when they receive general content. In addition, new data from Hubspot reveals that personalised CTAs perform 202% better than basic CTAs. Needless to say, Spotify excels in this department.

Netflix

Another example of a company doing it right? Netflix. Netflix remains relevant by utilising customer data and AI to customise the artwork in movie/show thumbnails according to the customer’s tastes and preferences. If one’s interest lies in thrillers, their thumbnail is more likely to be tailored to thrillers. If you’ve already seen season 1, Netflix shows you a still from season 2. Thus, not only do they receive personalised recommendations for films that suit them, the message is also continuously adjusted.

Zalando

Note that hyper-personalisation can be applied to every sector; e-commerce is no exception. Zalando, the multinational e-commerce company, personalises communications by putting together and presenting clothing ‘looks’ to the customer according to their purchase history. This strategy is quite effective; 60% of consumers tend to make a repeat purchase after a personalised shopping experience.

Getting personal at scale

We don’t have to tell you that in marketing, you’re never targeting a small number of identical people, but rather an array of customers who are all different. By using a platform such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can get personal at scale and achieve three-dimensional growth: more customers, higher profitability and increased loyalty. 

The personalisation maturity graph below, designates the steps you need to take in order to move from a single-message mailing to predicted personalisation. As you move a step up, you grow in each of the three aforementioned dimensions. Keep in mind that it is possible to be on different points of the graph with different channels.

Of course taking a hyper-personalisation approach is easier said than done. So how do you go about it? How do you turn every touchpoint in the omnichannel customer journey into a personal experience?

In the next blog post, we will walk you through adopting a successful hyper-personalisation strategy.

Questions?

Do you have questions about Marketing Cloud and how you can implement a hyper-personalisation strategy for your business? Contact us today.

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