Since the move to remote work in 2020, online engagement has seen a huge uptick. By huge uptick, we are talking about a 27% increase in retail eCommerce sales. This is a huge opportunity for eCommerce companies, but can also make it harder to stand out from the crowd.
Personalizing your customers' journey is essential to improving retention and cultivating a connection with your customers. Think about making your eCommerce store into a brick-and-mortar style endeavor. Get personal with patrons, throw some free merchandise to frequent employees, and make note of what goes out of stock quickly and what stays on the shelves. With today’s digital marketing you can definitely create this type of atmosphere online.
Ecommerce Personalization
Adding personalization can take your eCommerce marketing to the next level. What we mean by personalization is designing a shopping experience that is catered to each individual based on their behaviors and the info that they provide. The more personalization you create, the more engagement you will receive, and you can continue to evolve the process. By showing relevant content to your customers you will avoid wasting time and money.
Things To Do Before Personalizing
There are three things to consider before you start personalizing your eCommerce strategy. The first is to find a way to collect data on users such as behavior, demographics, and transaction data. This can be done through cookies, loyalty programs, or first-party data. Second, you must take the time to analyze the data you collected. After you have a way to analyze data you can create aggregate pools of visitors for specific marketing campaigns. Last is to deliver a customized experience for each of these segments.
How To Customize an Ecommerce Journey
There are several ways to customize a customer’s journey, which can help lead you to conversions. Depending on your industry and audience, there are some methods that can be easier to implement than others.
Personalized Homepages
When a customer logs into their account you will be able to deliver welcome pages that can highlight offers or items that a specific customer will be interested in. Offers on a personalized homepage can include a variety of things like promotions or suggestions based on past purchases. By giving customers promotions and item suggestions you can help push the customer down the marketing funnel. This also can help you create more loyal customers.
Show Recently Viewed Items
On eCommerce sites, customers will browse multiple times before actually committing to placing an item in the cart. Being able to see what items a customer has previously clicked on can help encourage them to put the items they passed up into the cart. You can include this on the homepage or landing pages, and at the bottom of all your eCommerce store pages. That way customers can keep track of what they have been looking at.
Create Campaigns On User Behavior
Since each customer has different needs, why would you offer them the same products? Collecting data to create personalization is key here. By using this data you can employ behavioral segmentation to create campaigns for specific groups. This strategy can be used for new and existing customers. For example, you can provide a promotion for new visitors to sign up for via an email list or loyalty program. And if an existing customer recently purchased an item, you can request a review.
You can base some customized offers on what your customers click on, pages they visit often, items in their cart or wish list, previous purchases, or products they are interested in.
Email Customization
Today there are over 3.9 billion email users. This gives companies a great opportunity to interact with their audience. However, there is a lot of competition. So the best way to stand out in a customer's inbox is by customizing it.
When a customer joins your email marketing list, you can leverage behavioral data to send targeted information based on interest. For example, you can send them a link to an item that they clicked on for more information but didn’t add to their cart. Make sure to personalize your subject line to make it eye-catching in your customer’s inbox. Being able to send out these emails allows eCommerce businesses to compete with big companies like Amazon.
Personalization of the eCommerce marketing experience should be vital to your strategy. You want customers to have a great experience and feel like they are being cared for while they are shopping on your site in the same way they would feel if they were shopping in person. Make sure to talk to your team about the best ways to personalize your website and its offerings.