I’m sure at some point we have all been a target of online marketing. We have all probably received an email or been targeted on social media but just how many of those have been personal to you? Have they been directed to you by your name? Have they marketed something that is of your interest? If they have, we can call this a form of Personalisation.

What is Personalisation? 

Personalisation in the context of Marketing can also be called ‘One-to-one Marketing’ or Personalised Marketing. It can also form part of ‘Relationship Marketing’ in some books, articles and other sources.

A simple explanation is that personalisation is ‘acquiring information from every possible point of contact and employing it in the process of identification’ (Pepper & Rogers, 1997) This is normally due to data retrieved from a database, with customer information, that can be filtered to tailor information to the individual customer. Copulsky and Wolf (1990) state a database influences Relationship Marketing/Personalisation and is used by marketing firms to select suitable customer information.

My Opinion: Yes or No?

In my own experiences, I thrive of personalisation as I believe that I am seen as an individual customer. I am more likely to click on a link or even open an email if I see something addressed to me by my name. I also enjoy businesses personalising my interests without me having to do it manually. For example, if I sign into my account on a fashion retailer and see styles handed picked by my previous orders or similar to what I browse, I will be more likely to use that company again. I do not think I am alone in my thoughts for personalisation and I believe many customers value it!

Below is an example of Boohoo trying to create a personalised selection of clothing that is similar to my interests or similar to the tops I have looked at. They have incorporated at the bottom of the page a ‘We think you’ll like’ section based on similarities of the tops I am browsing.

Source: Boohoo.com

This makes me intrigued as the tops are of my style and I have not selected anything about myself to give them any information; they have chosen the additional styles from the data they have of my account and my searches on Boohoo. They could, however, improve their personalisation as I am signed in and I do not see my name anywhere on the page to indicate it is my account.

Advantages for Businesses

According to Peppers and Rogers (1997) Personalised Marketing can ‘build long-term customer relationships with customers and offer products adjusted to their needs’, Businesses need to create relationships with customers in order to generate sales and keep customer retention high. In 2011, CO-OP Travel saw an 217% increase in sales and an 95% increase in visitors due to their personalisation on their website (E-Consultancy.com, 2013) This just shows how effective personalisation can be and that customers do actually like it (including myself!)

Businesses also want a competitive advantage by using this marketing strategy. Adopting ‘customer needs and value is essential in order to survive and grow in competitive markets (Slater & Narver, 2000) so personalisation can be used, even starting in a simplist form, to be beneficial to a business.

Are there any risks?

There is always a risk to anything new or developed that is introduced. However, some are bigger risks than others. The main risk of personalisation is doing it wrong. When I say wrong, I mean not correctly identifying the interests, needs and wants of a customer. Below is an example of a fashion retailer not quite grasping the personalisation like Boohoo.

Source: Misspap.co.uk

This website, Misspap, does show some recommendations that some people may feel are personalised to their searches as they include other dresses that are also fashionable (some could argue otherwise). However, they some differ quite extensively. Based on my own opinion, you can see a black dress, that looks more for a party, whilst the current search was on a summery dress. Misspap have also included some shoes. There is no indication on the page to suggest the kind of shoes I like to wear, for any occasion, let alone with that dress. I may also add that this was the first search I have done on this website for a long time and I have just created an account so they are unaware of my preference of footwear. So the question is, what are they basing their recommendations on? Who decided to suggest those shoes out of all the other pairs they sell? I fail to see how it is personalised and it is more customised to the company and their ‘opinion’.

Personalisation can collapse if there is no information or there is lack of information on the individual customer. According to Simon Kingsnorth (2016), this will result in some customers getting ‘generic comms’, meaning they receive general communications. This can include email, website data and other digital marketing strategies.

Key Points:

• Personalisation can be be effective if it is done correctly
• Personalisation can be in many forms
• It can give business advantage as well as customer advantage
• Risks can occur if data is not collected accurately

Are you interested on how to introduce Personalisation in a business? Click here

For further exploration on this topic click here also.

Thanks for reading!

Leila

References

E-Consultancy.com (2013). Three major benefits of using personalisation in marketing. Available from: https://econsultancy.com/blog/63212-three-major-benefits-of-using-personalisation-in-marketing

Kingsnorth, S. (2016). Digital marketing strategy. 1st ed. London (GB): Kogan Page.

Jonathan R. Copulsky, Michael J. Wolf, (1990) “Relationship Marketing: Positioning for the Future”, Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 11 Issue: 4, pp.16-20

Peppers, D. and M. Rogers. (1997). Enterprise one to one. 1st ed. New York: Currency/Doubleday.

Slater, S. F., & Narver, J. C. (2000). Intelligence generation and superior customer value. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.