When you receive a communication that appears just for you, it makes you more interested and engaged. That’s because people find it appealing when they see themselves in the message. It’s personalization, and it’s become more important in marketing. But how do you execute personalized marketing? And does it deliver ROI?
What Is Personalized Digital Marketing?
Simply put, it describes tactics you take to understand an audience’s needs, preferences, and demographics so that you offer them the right message. It’s the opposite of outbound marketing tactics that are generic. While these traditional advertising formats like radio and TV have great reach, they have to be broad. With personalization, you’re working to target specific groups with specific promotions.
Injecting Personalization into Marketing Efforts
There are several ways you can optimize personalization efforts.
Website Personalization for New Visitors
The experience of users visiting your website shouldn’t be the same for everyone. You have a chance to impact first-time visitors with a key message that addresses their “newness.”
Creating a pop-up that shows up on your site when it identifies a new user could hook that prospect. The offer should correlate to something of value to them. That could be a discount, an invitation to join a loyalty club, or another first-time customer exclusive.
Adding “For” Content to Your Website
Another way to personalize the website experience for customers is to include “for” content. This approach involves defining who your customers are and creating content that relates to them.
For example, if you have a landscaping company, you may cater to homeowners, commercial businesses, HOAs, and municipalities. You can use these segments to break out pages for each group and describe what services you provide.
Email Personalization Beyond Inserting a Name
Personalizing email marketing should involve much more than inserting a field for their name. People receive hundreds of emails every day, so your communication needs to stand out in a cluttered inbox. The best way to personalize emails is by segmenting your lists.
You can segment based on many variables—demographics, location, product/service interests, new vs. existing customers, and many more. Determine what makes the most sense in dividing your list to deliver the best experience.
For example, you may have locations of your business in several metro areas. While they have similarities, there may also be things that make them unique, so play to that.
Another option is to send prospects email messaging about a specific product or service in which they have an interest. That would be much more compelling than a general email about all the things you offer.
Personalization in SEM
SEM (search engine marketing) is critical to many local businesses. After all, that’s where most purchase journeys begin. You’ll want to define specific keywords related to a target audience or product. If you’re a local plumbing company, you may offer residential and commercial services, so you’ll need separate SEM campaigns for each.
Plumbers also offer different services—emergency service, repairs, new installations, and more. Developing personalized SEM ads for each will resonate more with the customers searching for these things.
Digital Marketing Personalization Creates Greater Relevancy
There’s nothing worse than being irrelevant to prospective customers. If there’s no personalization, customers may inadvertently believe you can’t help them. That’s why it’s vital to have a strategy and execute it. We can help. Get in touch to find out how.
