Building Brand Loyalty with Data-Backed Personalisation

In the world of increasing competition, delivering personalised experience is not a “nice to have” – it’s a must have strategy to grab the right customer attention, writes Forum Sheth, AVP - Content and Brand, WebEngage.

It’s no longer a secret that customers enjoy shopping from brands that offer personalised experience. In fact, as per research, 71% of consumers feel frustrated when a shopping experience is impersonal. 80% of frequent shoppers only shop with brands that personalise the experience.

Clearly, brands that capitalise on personalisation get massive customer attention as compared to those who try to pitch their prospects with generic, impersonal content. Netflix’s personalised recommendations have been a classic example of data-backed personalisation. In the present era of evolved customers, creating generic segmentation buckets and running mass targeted campaigns to get sales is not going to work. Treating customers as unique individuals, understanding their needs and delivering tailored experiences is the key.

Personalisation plays a significant role in engaging customers throughout the sales cycle by empowering brands to send tailored content that meets the specific needs of the customer, persuading them to take action. It helps brands establish deeper relationships with the prospects that translate into long-term brand loyalty.

Personalise or Perish

In the world of increasing competition, delivering personalised experience is not a “nice to have” – it’s a must have strategy to grab the right customer attention. Whether a brand decides to send offers, website recommendations or app notifications, personalization   becomes a key enabler in delivering individualised, memorable experiences throughout the customer journey.

Customers today keep gravitating to the brands that deliver exactly what the customer was looking for. Spotify is yet another great example of a brand that has successfully garnered brand loyalty through personalised customer engagement. So, a well-crafted personalisation strategy is the one that is a win-win for both brands and customers. It helps brands contextualise each brand message, offer or experience based on their behavioral patterns and purchase history to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.

With the abundance of data, technologies, marketing automation and AI engines at our disposal, the possibilities of delivering highly targeted and convertible personalised experiences to potential prospects are endless.

Data-driven personalisation to accelerate engagement and brand loyalty

Data is the oil that fuels the personalisation engine. The more data you gather about a prospect the better personalised experiences you can build. Data-driven personalisation allows you to understand your customers’ needs on a granular level to build experiences that are highly anticipated by your customers.

Brands can collect context-rich customer data across organisations to build detailed customer profiles and share these insights with the sales and support teams to improve marketing strategies leading to increased conversions across channels.

Customer Data Platform (CDP) - the backbone of data-driven personalisation

Brands today are utilising different types of data than ever before to deliver richer, personalised experiences. But managing and analysing such a vast pool of digital footprints in silos, consumes a lot of time. This is where Customer Data Platform (CDP) comes to the rescue. CDP helps you connect different data points across multiple channels on a single platform to deliver consistent user experiences. These data points can be then passed on to a Marketing Automation tool for developing a hyper-personalised experience across different marketing platforms like email, social media, and other digital touch points to engage and convert select customers. Marketing automation helps you transform each stage of your customer journey into an opportunity to re-engage your cold or lost prospects by nudging them to take an appropriate action.

Final Notes

Personalisation has emerged to be an indispensable part of user engagement and brand loyalty. Gone are the days of random messages and bulk blasts. Customers today are evolved and expect brands to understand their expectations without spamming their inbox with offers that are irrelevant to them. Personalisation enables brands to scan through every customer’s expectations in detail in order to build a deeper personal relationship. Further persuading them to come back to the brand whilst boosting conversions. Sending personalised recommendations leaves customers feeling as if their minds were read and their needs were met without them having to scroll through the pages of your website to find their product. This heightens your customers’ enthusiasm to return back to your website the next time they want to make a purchase.

In a nutshell, adopting a sound personalisation strategy can boost customer satisfaction, encourage brand loyalty and result in long-term ROI for business.