What are the Benefits of Personalised Product Recommendations?

Don’t you love it when you walk into your local coffee shop and being asked “the usual”? Or receiving emails that are relevant and personal to your interests?

As customers, we love that personal touch, when someone remembers our names or birthdays. It can make us feel like we’re their single most important customer.

What is Personalisation?

Personalised marketing used to be simple, by adding the customer’s name to the emails they receive from companies. Nowadays, personalisation is so much more – It’s allowing for deeper and more meaningful customer relationships, which encourage higher conversions, increases the average order value and increase customer engagement. According to the Aberdeen Group, personalised emails improve click through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. Yet, 32% of firms still don’t bother with personalised marketing.

SO… WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?

There are a range of ways that personalisation can benefit a company and increase the customers experience with the company. Below are a few examples:

1 | Increase Conversions

When you tailor your messages to your reader, you make the customers feel more important. By remembering past behaviours, companies can present relevant product or

Offers that appeal to particular customers. Personalisation can help to achieve this in several ways via email, including:

  • Subject Line – personalised with the recipient’s name, company’s name, or topic of interest using dynamic tags
  • Email Copy – greet the reader by their first name, references to their prior behaviour using a relevant dynamic call-to-action
  • Landing Page – reiterates the message delivered in the email, and features smart fields pre-loaded with the recipient’s information, such as; purchase information, shipping addresses, or other details

Watch the video below for full information on Conversion Rate with Personalised Recommendations:

2 | Increase Average Order Value

Average Order Value (AOV) is an e-commerce metric that measures the average total of every order placed with a company over a set period. Through personalisation, companies can increase this by having, “customers who brought this, also brought” either at the bottom of the page or at the check-out stage, this is to encourage customers to add products to their basket. An example of this is The Body Shop, when you select a product, at the bottom of the page is ‘recommended products’ that work well with the chosen product.

3 | Increase Customer Engagement

Stated simply, customer engagement is the depth of the relationship a customer has with a brand. Making the experience personal, helps to increase engagement levels and customer loyalty.

Personalised content or messages can keep customers on the site for longer, as the personal edge will encourage them to click or read on. Companies could look at offering deals to certain customers, for example; if they are new offering 10% OFF FIRST TIME BUY or for a loyal customer offering them FREE DELIVERY FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY.

Having the customer’s information saved, increases customer engagement as the customers don’t have to keep inputting their details, such as; delivery address, payment details etc. For returning customers, it also allows companies to show specific messages or content that is relevant for them, so that no same customer sees the same landing page.

FINAL THOUGHTS…

If done right, an e-business can collect enough information on their customers to personalise their shopping experience, which can bring them back again and again, and keep them as loyal customers (Flore, 2001). However, although personalisation has its benefits, companies need to consider not bombarding customers with personalised emails, as this can lose its affect or make sure that the information they are sending to their customers is relevant and in-line with their interests.

 

References

Barsby, A. (2016). 9 Benefits of Personalisation for Digital Marketing. Available: https://www.e-xanthos.co.uk/blog/9-benefits-personalisation-digital-marketing/ Last Accessed: 4th April 2017

Fiore, F. (2001). E-Marketing Strategies – The How’s and Whys of Driving Sales Through E-Commerce. 1st ed. Indiana: Que

Leslie, B. (2016). 5 Reasons Personalised Marketing is Essential. Available: http://figarodigital.co.uk/article/5-reasons-personalised-marketing-essential/ Last Accessed: 4th April 2017

Wainwright, C. (2012). 9 Undeniable Advantages of Using Personalised Content in Your Marketing. Available: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33971/9-Undeniable-Advantages-of-Using-Personalized-Content-in-Your-Marketing.aspx#sm.00000kr6tqj132e1ypmc1dh0h1ge3 Last Accessed: 4th April 2017

3 thoughts on “What are the Benefits of Personalised Product Recommendations?

  1. Very interesting to discover how personalised product recommendations work! I absolutely agree with the email bombarding, I find it can make a company unattractive as it seems impersonal and fake/automated (which, to be fair, it probably is).

    Regardless, interesting insight!

  2. Really interesting – I agree with you and Giulia also, it can be overwhelming and puts me off the company. However there have been times that i’ve actually found their recommendations really beneficial, especially at university – looking for books etc.

    Great post!

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