Think Disruptive: Personalise to win at eCommerce

We keep hearing in the media that it’s dog-eat-dog in the marketing world, as big name brands line up to post profit warnings and file for bankruptcy; Toys R Us being the latest in the USA.

But our experience is that if you work hard to connect with your customer, and differentiate your brand from the masses, you can thrive.

Success isn’t based on chance, it’s achieved through great planning, calculated risks and understanding what is important for your customers. The relationship between brands and consumers is a key driver, hence why it’s now more important than ever to communicate with your customers on a personalised level.

With customers’ growing expectation to be treated as individuals, eConsultancy has looked at the way in which technology has progressed to enable ecommerce marketers to build and maintain relationships at all levels:

Newsletters

There was once a time, not so long ago, when marketers followed a one-size-fits-all approach to their newsletters, with general campaigns being sent to everyone on their mailing lists.

But things have changed. Customers now expect more from marketing messages and will voice their opinion if they receive a highly irrelevant email. Marketers need to see their customers as individuals, not just a mailing list.

The next step on improving your focus is:

Segmentation

If they haven’t already, marketers today should be moving on from batch-and-blast newsletters.

Segmentation has enabled marketers to use data to personalise emails with basic demographic information. It ensures subscribers receive more relevant content.

Demographic segmentation is a start, but you need to go further to understand how different segments think, so you can respond accordingly.

Automation

To provide more personalised content, marketers’ workload increased. Thankfully marketing automation came in and saved the day.

Automation provides marketers with more time to create more campaigns, reaching more consumers at more points — from a welcome campaign to post-purchase message.

However, marketers need to make sure they don’t bombard consumers with communications. There’s a fine line between relationship building and harassment.

Dynamic content

Dynamic content has progressed basic segmentation to 1:1 personalisation — meaning marketers can truly meet consumer expectations….without spending all day, every day manually setting up endless email templates.

In email, dynamic content uses a recipient’s customer profile to automatically change content so it appeals to them.

Integrated cross-channel communication

Of course, marketers have multiple platforms to wrestle with. For a truly effective ecommerce marketing strategy, marketers need to unify all of these touchpoints. This will enable them to send the right message on the right channel at the right time.

Disparate marketing teams will need to become one to ensure data sharing and consistency, and achieving Single Customer View. There’s little point sending a newsletter if your customer would rather have interaction on Twitter.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The future of marketing inevitably lies in AI. This technology will have the power to predict future behaviour to influence content and deliver the message in a cross-channel environment.

AI will be able to use its immense machine learning capacity to process data and gain insights, enabling marketers to focus on developing ever-more personalised strategies.

All brands feel like they’re operating in an overcrowded market. In order to beat the competition, you need to think how you can utilise technology differently to create engaging content to ensure you stand out.

As market disruptors, Fireworx can help you think outside the box with your ecommerce marketing. If you’re ready to think disruptive, why not #ChallengeFWX today?