Use Real-Time Personalization to Create Dynamic, Relevant Experiences

Personalization has become something of a buzzword in marketing, but to really take advantage of its potential to impress, you need to be doing it in real time. So, how can you make real-time personalization a reality for your business and what impact will it have?

Instead of simply adding names to an email marketing campaign or segmenting your audience, you need to be offering an individual response to every interaction your brand has with a customer. This means delivering on-the-spot customized content no matter which channel they’re using.

The power of real-time personalization

Marketers can’t afford to ignore the importance of personalization, as recent research carried out by ecommerce platform Kibo found it can boost ROI by as much as 200%. Employing the technique across everything from promotional materials to abandoned shopping cart emails offers better returns than focusing on a single area of personalization.

To understand what effective real-time personalization is you don’t need to look any further than companies like Netflix and Google. They’re able to ascertain which users are engaged and what’s holding their interest, as well as recommending products and content based on good-quality data.

Harness the data

Creating targeted content that will appeal to the specific interests and pain points of a specific demographic means truly getting to know them. This should be done by utilizing all of the data you’ve collected and analyzed on this type of customer.

Messages based on specific actions can be tailored to be more relevant and more personalized to improve the customer experience. This will not only help to make the user feel more valued and address their issue, but also move them on to the next stage of the buyer cycle.

Learn more: Digital Analytics Defined: Here’s How They Work (and Why it Matters)

When to deploy real-time personalization

While you want to be offering a consistent personalized approach to all interactions, there are some particular areas worth focusing on to begin with.

Localized content

Location-specific content is an obvious place to start with real-time personalization. Regional services and events will be more relevant to certain audiences determined by geography. Your data can help you identify anonymous visitors that fit into an already established demographic.

Industry-based content

Personalization isn’t just important in B2C marketing, but also in the B2B sphere too. After all, buyers are likely to be time poor at work and putting content in front of them that’s pertinent to their role is more likely to be effective. Avoid alienating them with irrelevant offers that waste their time.

Account-based marketing

Targeting a set of accounts can earn a business high rewards and real-time personalization can be used to speak directly to the needs of these users. IP addresses can help to group such accounts together and enable a joined-up strategy that delivers a message to those within the organization you’re looking to work with.

Customers exchange data for personalization

There are growing concerns in the digital sphere about privacy, but customers are prepared to share their data in return for a more meaningful experience. That means companies that create personalized campaigns and use data to improve interactions will be rewarded with improved engagement and a better ROI.

As a result, customers feel their time is respected when they’re shown messages that relate to them. Conversely, a lack of personalization leads to recommendations being perceived as an annoyance, cluttering up a browser or webpage.

How AI can enhance real-time personalization

As technology develops, it helps to evolve the possibilities offered in marketing and AI can now be used to make real-time personalization an actuality. Use AI techniques to boost multiple areas within campaigns and ensure no touchpoint gets left behind.

• Design intelligent personas that are enriched with machine learning, data mining and natural language processing
• AI classification algorithms make capturing vast quantities of data points to describe customer behavior much more achievable
• Bring data from multiple sources into a single view of the user to ensure continuity across channels
• Offer chatbot capabilities to solve issues in real time and improve communication for small, immediate barriers to purchasing
• Use a segmentation algorithm to get a better understanding of customer behavior, such as when they make decisions and the points at which they’ll be most receptive to content or offers
• Increase conversion and cross-sell products with an AI-enabled recommendation system that uses data from other customers in the same segment