In the age of the always-on consumer, brands are expected to offer a real-time detail and clever customisation if they want to deliver exceptional customer service and stand out from competitors.
Whether your business uses personalisation, contextualisation or a combination of both, it’s important that communications are designed with the customer in mind. Taking important steps to improve your customer service can enable your business to improve satisfaction, retention and conversion results – all contributing to greater profits.
Let’s start by addressing what each approach is
Contextualisation considers the particular circumstances in which your communications or marketing activities are distributed. For example, contextualisation would be a healthcare brand sending an email in response to news of an approaching heatwave with the subject line: “Ready for the heatwave? Buy your half price sun cream now!”.
However, if you were planning to personalise this email, it might read: “Are you protecting your skin, Mark? Buy your half price sun cream now ”. This directly recognises the reader as an individual and communicates with them on a personal level.
Why does it matter?
Each method will develop a different experience for the customer and drive a different type of response. It also considers the varying level of data you may hold on potential or existing customers.
The real-time approach works well when you don’t have specific details about the consumer or you are reacting to a widely recognised event such as weather, calendar holidays or breaking news.
The personalised approach is great for valuing customers as individuals and uses stored data to skilfully address them on a human level, rather than viewing people as numbers on a database.
Delivering excellent personalised communications is a fine art but if handled correctly and developed with customer care in mind you could see great return on your investment. In fact, research by Econsultancy highlights that 74% of marketers believe personalisation increases their customer engagement.
It’s important to remember, however, that personalisation and contextualisation are not mutually exclusive!
Here are 6 ways you can get the best of personalised and contextualised marketing:
Distribute contextualised communications based on what you know about your customer
Using contextual information to target your customers specifically can give a great opportunity to combine both techniques. For example, if there’s another heatwave and your customer regularly purchases sunglasses then it could be an opportune moment to promote a sale on glasses or share a dedicated discount code. However, if another customer only ever buys jumpers and socks then they are unlikely to be interested in a summer seasonal sale. In this instance you can use your customer purchase history information and preferences to make the most of a particular context.
Develop personalised communications based on their behaviour with your brand
It’s important that your personalisation tactics are directed by your data. It’s no good sending a personalised email (indicating your knowledge about a customer) with information or offers that have no bearing on that individual. If you do not carefully target your emails, your communications could appear pushy, intrusive and inappropriate, causing a customer to disengage. Instead your personalised emails should be targeted not only by the consumer’s name, but by their existing behaviours, customer preferences and details about their interests.
Trigger emails based on user activities
A great way to target your personalised emails is in response to a particular activity. For example, automated emails could be triggered when a customer signs up to your e-newsletter, completes a purchase or even if they abandon their basket. Responding to specific activities provides you with a clear opportunity to make contact. As a customer begins to expect contact from your business, they are more likely to engage with your communications. They will begin to anticipate communications and the level or personalisation, rather than being put off by unexpected and unnecessary contact.
Ask your customers
Take the opportunity to ask your customers about the communications they are happy to receive. Rather than guessing about preferred levels of personalisation, desired frequency and content of your communications, give your customers the option to tailor the marketing they receive to best suit their needs. By giving your customers what they want and expect, you are likely to experience better open and click through rates.
User a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
A CRM system can help you to organise and access data about your customers at the touch of a button. This is important if you need quick access to customer data to deliver better customer service. For example, if someone rings to order a pizza delivery from your business then it could be helpful to already have details about their phone number and delivery address rather than having to take this information from them each time. Showing awareness that you’re speaking to a valued customer could encourage them to choose your business over a competitor’s the next time they decide to order a food delivery.
Use contextualisation across your touchpoints
The opportunity to use contextualisation techniques is not just for direct communication methods. This can be particularly useful if you also don’t hold any data about the consumer. For example, if a potential customer is visiting your website, you could include information about the weather forecast or a countdown to a big holiday. This could encourage the visitor to convert based on a specific situation. This can be easily managed, often planned in advance and doesn’t rely on any personal data.