As an ORM agency, we are constantly on the look-out for how our clients can improve their business strategies to optimize revenue. After monitoring countless bad reviews-and suppressing them or removing them altogether-we have a few tips on how to properly personalize your offering to your customers.
With a flood of decisions to be made, reviewing platforms have become an essential and influential factor for potential customers. The fact of the matter is that people don’t like to make decisions when faced with ten very similar options. Also, they have developed trust issues with brands thanks to a decline of customer service and employee expertise.
We have seen many companies attempt to personalize their offerings-the numbers ring true. Studies have indicated that 75% of customers are more likely to show signs of loyalty if they feel that they are remembered and cared for by the brand in question.
Unfortunately, too many brands have tackled personalization all wrong. Here’s what ORM experts believe you should be doing differently:
1) Don’t make customers feel like you’re intruding on their privacy. Some companies have taken the boundaries of privacy too far, such as Walmart. This grand and trusted retail giant has begun testing in-fridge delivery by pairing up with the smart lock company, August Home. Through a one-time passcode, Walmart delivery people will be able to enter a customer’s home and place their favorite grocery items in their fridge. To top it all off-because privacy is inevitably an issue in this case-customers can access an app to watch the deliverers through a surveillance camera that has been installed in their home. Of course, the test market for this innovation is Silicon Valley. Although this idea definitely borderlines privacy issues, it turns out that most customers (80%, to be precise) don’t feel infringed by brands. Those that do feel creeped out by a brand’s inquiries are when they never provided specific information for the company’s using. This is often a result of brands’ use of exterior data to try and sway over potential clients. So, the method is simple: To avoid being creepy, all you need to do is stick to what the customer has given to you. It’s about how you use that information in your attempt to convenience them that will make you stand out from the rest of the crowd.
2) Drop customer personas. The old persona tactic is a trick that many marketers may have learnt in the classroom setting, but times are changing-and they’re changing quickly. You can’t put customers in a box anymore. Their psychographics extend past the purchase of the shoes they bought last month. They may have a new item that they’re on the radar for, such as a clutch purse or statement earrings. As a digital marketer, there’s no point in showing them a different alternative to the shoes they have recently purchases since they are now onto something now. If you want to catch their attention, you need to remain relevant to their needs.
3) Seek opportunities where your customers can trust you. Take Netflix as the prime example here. They consider the attributes of what you like-such as the genre of movie, the characters and the director-as opposed to the name of the movie you are watching. You shouldn’t be pushing things onto your customer for face value, but instead you should dig a little deeper. What is it that your customer fancies when in the market for new sunglasses? Perhaps it’s the brand and frame style, not necessarily the color scheme. Personalization is all in the details, not so much the big picture.