When it comes to winning the hearts and minds of your customers, a great site with excellent products will not suffice. If you wish to encourage them to come back to your site time and again, some trigger needs to be created. Marketers who believe in building customer relationships the same way they think about building personal relationships find personalization gives them significant competitive advantages.
Statistics to Observe
- 75% of consumers like when a brand personalizes their messages and offers
- 74% of consumers get frustrated with irrelevant content
- 61% of consumers prefer offers and rewards
Personalized eCommerce not only refers to the process of altering the site appearance or navigation to the interests of the visitors but also serving the best
Here are 8 ways to make customers remain loyal to you with personalized ecommerce.
#1. Do you know your Customer’s Interests?
Online retailers should know what interests their customers and accordingly make offers to appeal to them individually. For instance, populate your Home Page with items you think will interest specific visitors. Customize your site based on what you have learned about shoppers from their previous searches, visits and purchases. Some of the marketers are even using tools to personalize their eCommerce site.
This is one of the most basic forms of personalization. Shoppers should be shown different sections of content based on their likes and activities. However, this also includes redirecting the shoppers to a landing page based on the referral site. You may also use order history to personalize their experience. Group the similar customers in a segment without overloading the back-end system and impacting the site performance.
#3. What’s with Introductory Questionnaires?
A pre-purchase questionnaire is an effective way of personalization especially before a customer completes his checkout process. At this stage, you can acquire sufficient customer insights to provide them a unique shopping experience. Asking a few questions about your customer’s opinion of your brand is a fantastic way to make your brand know its strength and weaknesses.
#4. Have you Tried Dynamic Content?
As said earlier, 74% of customers are frustrated with content that has nothing to do with their interests. However, allowing your customer’s browsing habits to direct content is a great way to provide personalized experience. Ask for specific information to help narrow their searches. With each search they do, pages they view, forms they fill out, and emails they open, you get to learn more about them. The information gathered can then be used to create targeted and relevant content.
#5. Have you grabbed the Email Personalization Opportunity?
It’s time to make some quick changes especially when it comes to sending emails to your clients. Segment your subscribers into groups including buyers and non-buyers. Run a loyalty program or highlight promotions in your newsletter for your existing loyal customers. Similarly, you may deliver emails incorporating case studies or customer reviews to increase confidence in the non-buyers.
Another amazing way to enhance email effectiveness is by personalizing the subject line. Also you can expect a 29 percent increase in the open rate by simply addressing the receiver’s first name.
#6. Is Personalizing Conversion Rate within your Strategy?
Dynamic retargeting is an important part of the personalization process. Showing relevant ads repeatedly help consumers make quick decisions. Retargeting is all about individual shoppers wanting specific products of their choices.
Retargeting Phases
- Time-Based Retargeting – Retarget your ads to those visitors who didn’t get back to your site after several days. You can also adjust your remarketing to suit the seasons or holidays.
- Location-based retargeting – Retarget your ads based on the consumers’ locations and emphasize the unique values per their locations.
- Retargeting the recent items – Your retargeting ads should promote the items a visitor viewed before leaving your site without purchasing them.
However, the more generic the ad, the less likely you are to get them to click.
Moreover, utilizing online chat is an excellent way to get personal on your site. Forrester Researchers found that 44% of online consumers believe that having questions answered by a live person in the middle of an online purchase is an important feature a website can offer.
#7. Does Personalization of Creative Messages Really Matters?
Presenting the right messages in front of the right shoppers at the right time is critical in eCommerce. Creative messages and ideas may include
- Real-time Offers – Enhance your conversion rates by offering limited discounts or coupons to valued customers.
- Contextual Messages – Instead of showing visitors static ads, you may use Dynamic Keyword Insertion to target visitors based on the keywords they search on Google.
- Geo-Location Messages – Make your shoppers feel special by announcing your free shipping policy to their exact locations.
- Micro Conversions – Instead of aiming at people to make them purchase from your site, try to get minimal commitment from the visitors. Focus on micro conversions to prevent customers from leaving your site.
#8. Product Customization to Cater to Customers’ Specific Needs
Are the customers confused with the size and style of your products? To make them avoid such confusion personalize the product options. Product customization is important during the checkout process. Also until you measure your products correctly, you cannot make your customers feel confident about your products and services.
In today’s competitive market, you cannot afford to lose any customers. However, personalizing your service can help your site attract more and more of prospective.
Images: “Digital Online Marketing E-Commerce Office Working Concept/Shutterstock.com“
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