Marketers are looking increasingly at personalisation to help them improve the performance of their efforts. However, personalization seems to be hard to apply .91 percent of marketers use or intent to use personalisation with the next year (Evergage,2015)

What do we mean by personalisation ?

Personalization is the use of technology and customer information to tailor electronic commerce interactions between a business and each individual customer. A generic example is by name for instance ‘Hi John’ is the most common. Personalization seems to be hard to apply and execute. One reason for this is that personalization means something different to each business, as Kemp (2001) points out.

Marketers are easily confused by the different meanings of personalization (Merisavo et al., 2002).

User defined personalisation

This method simply allows the individual to tell us what they want. The urge to personalize is largely driven by the expected benefits of one to one marketing and customer relationship management. Marketers try to meet customers’ expectations and avoid spam reactions (Roman and Hernstein, 2004).

A benefit of using this method is that assumptions made about a segment may not be a representative of the individuals. Thus, using this method allows the risk to disappear.

Tips

Some individuals may get put of by giving information, having the right to withdraw information and telling consumers what the information is for allows for trust thus encouraging consumers to give detail. For example Asos allows you unsubscribe from their emails and lets you decide on what information you want to receive and where on for instance your email , text or even post.

Risks

This method required the user to provide with data. This can be done through online forms, competition.

One risk is that if someone is unwilling to provide you with information the model collapses. Thus, the consumer will receive generic emails, bargains ect.

Secondly.

You rely on the data having to be accurate, for example if you force consumers to give you this data, it can be a strong change they may provide fake data.

Thirdly

You are assuming people know themselves. For example, the Dunning -Kruger effect in which an individual believes themselves to be far better at a skill than is actually the truth. For example, someone may have been a keen cyclist years ago but may still consider cycling a hobby even though they haven’t cycled in years. Thus, you send them cycle vouchers which go unused.

So, the user defined personalisation model does have some strong advantages but you have to be sure the of the risks before using it. (Kingsnorth, n.d.)

Behavioural personalisation

Behavioural personalisation takes indications of an individual’s behaviour from signals received through various data collections e.g. visiting a website, opening an email

Benefit

This opportunity means that consumers can start to receive information that is relevant to them.

Tips

• Highlight what data is going to matter the most to you, for instance the product that they are looking at/buying to tailor products to them. For example, a recommendation list like amazon
• To gain more feedback as sometimes assumption may not be enough to assume why they didn’t buy the product.

Risks

Interpreting the data – The data you receive will need to be interpreted there is a risk that the data may be interpreting differently thus will lead to a different personalisation that doesn’t relate to the consumer. For example, if John visits the site and adds cycling gear to the basket but decides not to buy it, what do we assume from this. Is john a keen cyclist, is he undecided about the product or brand. Thus, assuming the answer could lead to thousands of assumptions. Whereas it could just be John.

Another risk is privacy

The ethics of what we should know about people is constantly being questioned. For example, one example of privacy being violated is when Disney allowed their playdom business to enable children to post their full names and location online.

Adult media use and attitudes report found that 42 percent of internet users are happy to provide personal information online to companies as long as they get what they want in return.

Behaviour personalisation is very strong and it offers the best results for consumers and organisation but there is still a difficult path before it becomes comfortable.

Tactical personalisation

Sometimes a personalisation can simply offer a user something unique and enticing for example allowing the customer to alter the design of the background image of the app. You may not gain any insight but the customer may value the ability.

Summary:

Overall, these tips and risks will be useful when using personalisation to increase leads, this will allow you to think of different approach when using it. As one approach may not work for every company.

References

Evergage(2015) [accessed 1 April 2018] New Evergage survey finds 91% of Marketers currently use or Intend to use Personalization with the Next Year,[online] http://www.evergage.com/blog/press/new-evergage-survey-finds-91-of-marketers-currently-use-or-intend-to-use-personalization-within-the-next-year

Kemp, T. (2001), “Personalization isn’t a product”, Internet Week, No. 864, 4 June, p. 1. [Google Scholar]

Kingsnorth, S. (n.d.). Digital marketing strategy. p.205.

McRaney,D(2012) You Are Not so Smart: why your memory is mostly fiction, why you have too many friends  on Facebook and 46 other ways you’re deluding yourself , Oneworld Publications.

Merisavo, M., Vesanen, J. and Raulas, M. (2002), Suomalaisten asiantuntijoiden kokemukset ja näkemykset digitaalisten kanavien käytöstä markkinoinnissa, LTT, Helsinki. [Google Scholar]

Roman, E. and Hernstein, S. (2004), Opt‐in Marketing, McGraw‐Hill, New York, NY. [Google Scholar]

When forming new initiatives for your business strategy, it is important to have an outcome in mind, this blog will focus on the initiative of using social media to increase purchases and leads.

According to research by wearesocial in January 2015 there were 3billion active internet users in the world and 2 billion of those were active on social media. Also interesting is that 81 percent of those active users are active on a mobile device (Kemp,2015). Therefore, it can be doubtful that there are any businesses who can truly say that none of their target audience are using social media.

Tip 1 – Make social posts mobile responsive

Social and mobile

Social networking is very easy to do on the go. Therefore, social media is ideally suited to mobile. It is important to recognize that most social media users are engaging through apps and not desktops or laptops. According to Statista, 80 percent of twitter users are now mobile and the number is similar to Facebook (Brandt 2015) .

Tip 2 – Join the conversation

Social media allows brands to influence their customer base to a degree via brand pages. However more importantly, it provides brand with the opportunity to be influenced. The companies that truly succeed in the social space are not those that try to own the conversation or those that just sit passively and listen. it is those that sit alongside their customers joining the conversation and relishing the fact they are interacting with one another.

Coelho, Oliveira and de Almeida (2016) further explains that compared to other social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram has more interaction between the customer and the organisation. By making your new consumers feel valued straightaway, it could persuade them to make purchases.

Tip 3 – Encourage engagement

Using incentives such as gift card, freebies etc can encourage consumers to engage online with the brand. For example Seeing someone you trust engaging with a brand(e.g. like, sharing or commenting) helps build credibility for the brand. Thus, can expand the following of the brand as well as potentially increasing sales. Using a competition can increase following of the brand and allows for a bigger reach for example sharing the post for your chance to win. Competitions can entice people, and expand your reach (Bunskoek, 2014)

Risk 1 – Negative publicity

Consumers are more empowered by social media, as these technologies enable consumers to share their brand stories widely with peers. Research has already highlighted the persuasiveness of consumer-generated brand stories in the context of electronic word-of-mouth (e.g., Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006; Chintagunta, Gopinath, and Venkataraman 2010; Duan, Gu, and Whinston 2008; Sun 2012). When consumers are pleased with a purchase they advocate for it by word of mouth including social media, but if the consumer is disappointed with the brand they may criticise it through social media.

Risk 2 – Misunderstanding the message

The assumption is that a brand’s identity will be understood in the same way by all members of the target audience, (for instance doves ‘real beauty’ advert). Thus, there is only one collectively held meaning for the brand as determined by the firm. In other words, brand image is congruent with the brand’s identity. Since consumers understand this intended meaning of the brand, it serves as a useful decision-making heuristic, reducing risk and saving time. The resulting brand knowledge or customer-based brand equity can be leveraged for creating and capturing incremental shareholder value (Keller 1993).

Risk 3 – No guarantee

Having a big following doesn’t always mean your social media posts with go viral, with social networks. It is challenging to engage audiences as some may not wish to interact with brands or find the right content to encourage engagement thus can be time consuming and may not see the return of investment on every social post(Chaffey 2017).

Summary:

Overall this blog post can help you be aware of the risks and allow you to use the tips to gain more leads and hopefully purchases.

References

Brandt,m(2015) 80% of Twitters users are mobile, statista[online] http://www.statista.com/chart/1520/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users[accessed 27 Feberuary 2018]

Bunskoek, K. (2014) ‘How to Run a Successful Instagram Contest’. [Online <https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/run-successful-instagram-contest/> [Accessed 27 February 2018]

Chevalier, Judith and Dina Mayzlin (2006), “The Effect of Word-of-Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews,” Journal of Marketing Research, 43, 3, 345–54.

Chintagunta, Pradeep, Shyam Gopinath, and Sriram Venkataraman (2010),“The Effects of Online User Reviews on Movie Box Office Performance:Accounting for Sequential Rollout and Agg

Chiu, Hung-Chang, Yi-Ching Hsieh, and Yi-Chu Kuo (2012), “How to Align your Brand Stories with your Products,” Journal of Retailing, 88, 2, 262–75.

Coelho, R.L.F., Oliveira, D.S & de Almeida, M.I.S. (2016) Does social media matter for post typology? Impact of post
content on Facebook and Instagram metrics. Online Information Review. Vol. 40, No. 4, p458-471.

Keller, Kevin Lane (1993), “Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity,” Journal of Marketing, 57, 1, 1–22.,

Kemp,s(2015) Digital,social and mobile worldwide in 2015 ,wearesocial  [online] wearesocial.net/tag/statistics [accessed 27 Feburary 2018]

Social media and viral marketing

Social media is an important category which involves encouraging customers communications on a company’s own site or social presence such as Facebook or twitter.Social media marketing is related to relationship marketing where the firm needs to shift from trying to sell to making connections with  the consumers (Gordhamer, 2009)

Research by eMarketer has shown that consumers go to social media sites to keep up with a brand’s products and
promotional campaigns (Mangold and Foulds, 2009; Leggat, 2010). Thus shows its a useful channel.

Companies can use Facebook or twitter to send messages to customers or partners that follow them.

 (Smart Insights, 2018)

As you can see from the image above social media can reach a large audience which can be a lower cost then doing a offline campaign.

The cost of social marketing is fairly cheaper in comparison to offline marketing for example the reach is global compared to offline marketing.Social media marketing is also more targeted than offline marketing  and other channels for example you can target customers that have been to certain locations e.g been to Zara  thus more likely to like clothes that match Zaras style.

Kumar et al (2007) have discussed the potential value that can be generated through customer referrals in several case studies. Within social networks, major influencers can help spread the message more widely.

Viral marketing can be a benefit of social media marketing as social media naturally involves social media amplification where content is shared.

Small and medium sized business may also benefit from using social media in terms of improving their customer relationships for example replying to customers on social media allows customers to be heard as well as people that may have the same issue.Thus can potentially improve the relationship between a consumer and the company.

 (Smart Insights, 2018)

As you can see 1/5 of internet users worldwide use social media this gives them the access to choice when choosing products or services.

Dee et al (2007) note the important of social networks influencing perception about brands, products and suppliers.Therefore today social media has become a core element for businesses. Social media communication has a positive influence on both brand equity and brand attitude. Both brand equity and brand attitude were shown to have a positive influence on purchase intention.

Another benefit of social media marketing is data , for example if a clothing company shares a link on its Facebook , Instagram and twitter. It can see which social media channel is getting the most engagement and therefore focus more effort of the successful social media channel.

With data you can also see which area/age is getting the most engagement, from this businesses can choose to focus on the leading areas and why they’re getting more engagement or see why some areas are not getting as much engagement.

Disadvantages

One disadvantage of social media marketing is that there is no guarantee that the campaign will go viral or receive leads/sales in which case the investment would be wasted.

It can also be difficult to find the right content which will engage the audience for example some companies may not have enough financial resources to constantly update content on their social medias thus can lose potential followings. Consumers prefer to see updated content on social media. Thus, Google has changed the
algorithm of their search system to enable customers to see the updated content first (Freidman, 2011). This can therefore be difficult for smaller companies to compete.

Companies can also face backlash on social media. Although positive viral marketing can spread rapidly so can negative sentiments about a company which can affect a companies reputation for example delayed orders , bad reviews or bad publicity.

Companies that want to run effective social media campaigns should take into consideration the benefits, values,
advantages/disadvantage they offer to the consumers in their campaigns, what makes the consumers more likely to
become loyal to their brands.

References

Smart Insights. (2018). Global Social Media Statistics Summary 2017. [online] Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/ [Accessed 16 Jan. 2018].

Erdoğmuş, İ. and Çiçek, M. (2012). The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Brand Loyalty. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 58, pp.1353-1360.

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Digital marketing. Harlow [etc.]: Pearson, pp.529-534.

UK food delivery market grows to more than £6 billion for the first time in 2016

Email marketing is where email campaigns are used as a form of direct marketing to encourage trail and purchases and as part of a CRM dialogue.

A consumer can opt in for in house email marketing , which options include conversion emails , regular newsletters , house list campaign, event triggered  and email sequence.

Companies like ubereats encourage consumers to opt in by offering incentives to increase conversion emails. This is  One of the first factors that contribute to the success of email marketing is using incentives to receive the email in the first place for example ubereats gives you £10 off your first order when you sign up. You’re then added to their mailing list.

Discounting popular items

Another reason why email marketing is successful in the takeaway industry is due to the fact of price transparency. Consumers can see when deals are available for example domino’s  two for one Tuesday. which encourages consumers to buy due to commoditisation. Which is an example of an event triggered email which is based which tend to be posted when there is an offer available.

The key measure for email marketing are

The delivery rate. Emails will bounce if the email address is no longer valid or a spam filter blocks the email.

The open rate. This is measured for HTML messages through downloaded images.It is an indication of how many customers open an email, but is not accurate since some users have preview panes in the email.

Click through or click rate. This is the number of people who click through on the email of those delivered.

When a email recipient clicks through to the website. Retailers will also have additional methods of comparing email campaigns such as revenue/profit per email or thousand emails or average value order

Stage 1 :You need to create a performance management.

Stage 2 : Defining the performance metrics framework

When Identifying metrics it is common practise to apply the widely used SMART  mnemonics and it also useful to consider three levels business measures , marketing measures and specific digital measures.

The five diagnostic categories for digital marketing measures are

Business contribution : Online revenue contribution, category penetration , cost and profitability.

Marketing outcomes: Leads, sales , service contacts , conversion and retention efficiency. In the case of email marketing you can look at the number of sales before and after a campaign , the number of users that are opting in for emails and the conversion from emails.

Customer satisfaction: site usability , performance / availability , contact strategies , opinions , attitudes and brand impact. Email is also a important way to keep customers satisfied for example after they’ve order there food an email confirm they order has been sent. Also replying to complaints can be a reason why a customers stays or leaves the company they’re shopping with.

4. Customer behaviour : Profiles, customer orientation , usability , click streams and site actions. Usability is also important with emails , it is important you design the email with all devices in mind as they might show up differently on different devices.

5. Site promotion: Attraction efficiency . Referrer efficiency , cost of acquisition and reach  and E-mail marketing.

Stage 3 : Tools and technique for collecting metrics and summarising results

One way to view if the email has been read is to record the number of hits an email receive this can be recorded for each email text file requested .

Another way or tracking effective Email marketing is through AB testing it refers to testing two different version of a email element such as a heading , image or button for effectiveness.

Some visitors with get one email while others will get a different on thus you can compare which produces more leads thus is more effective .

References

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Digital marketing. Harlow [etc.]: Pearson, pp.553-60.

Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Digital marketing. Harlow [etc.]: Pearson, pp.522-524