Authoritative brands don’t put their sales first. Instead, they prioritize customer experiences.

They research their markets thoroughly, observe competitors, segment audiences, and create buyer personas to learn more about their customer groups.

What separates them from average brands is a deep understanding of their customers and the personalized experiences they provide. 

Personalization can boost your brand in multiple ways, from increasing customer satisfaction, nurturing leads, and attracting new customers to maximizing your ROI.

Here is how to use personalization to improve user experiences.

Segment Audiences to Provide Relevant Content

Many brands use the segmentation of email lists instead of sending out generic emails to all customer groups. This could serve as a great starting point for you, too. For example, Adidas adapts offers based on customers’ gender. Amazon tailors email lists based on a customer’s previous browsing and purchasing history. Some, on the other hand, rely on localizing their email list. Uber uses customers’ locations to provide accurate pricing information.

You could also use geotargeting to provide better website browsing experiences. International brands like Nike let customers select the country they’re searching from. Big e-commerce brands like eBay or Amazon also use geotargeting to boost user experiences. This lets them localize the entire browsing experience, from the language used to shipping and pricing data.

Seek Customer Feedback and Act on It

Statistics say that 68% of customers stop buying from brands because they feel the brand doesn’t care about them.

To prevent that from happening, you need to constantly ask for customer feedback.

There are numerous ways to do so.

  • Ask for customer reviews and ratings across multiple channels, such as Google or social networks. 
  • Listen to your customers on social networks. Use social media monitoring tools to track relevant discussions and participate in them actively.
  • Create online surveys and send them out via email or even SMS. To encourage customers to be honest, consider rewarding them. 
  • Ask them to take a brief post-purchase survey on your website.
  • Create a poll or a quiz on social networks and encourage users to participate.
  • Have your customer support reps call your customers and ask for their opinions about your products.

Don’t be afraid of negative feedback. No matter how dedicated you are, there will always be dissatisfied customers. Instead of running away from them, why not turn their negative experiences into positive ones?

First, always be polite and professional. Show that you’re grateful for their feedback. Second, deliver on these promises. Collect both positive and negative feedback, analyze it, and make relevant changes based on it. This is exactly what big brands do. For example, a few years ago, many Netflix users complained about falling asleep while watching a show and not seeing how the episode ends. To address this problem, the brand designed Netflix Socks that detect when a user falls asleep and automatically pause the show. Logically, this increased user experiences and gave customers yet another reason to stay loyal to them.

Deliver Spotless Omnichannel User Experiences

We’re living in a hyperconnected era, where users rely on a plenitude of online and offline channels when making a purchase. They use your website, online reviews, social networks, email addresses, and branded catalogs to communicate with your brand and make purchasing decisions.

This is why you need to invest in a solid omnichannel marketing strategy.

For example, be available across multiple channels. When building your online presence, make your NAP information (name, address, phone number) consistent and available across all online channels you use. Make your email address prominent, integrate contact forms, and provide links to social networks. 

Use live chat to humanize your user experiences and let customers get highly targeted and relevant feedback from your customer reps. Chatbots also play an immensely important role in improving customer satisfaction. These AI tools keep learning about your customers’ preferences. A chatbot will ask a customer specific questions and, based on them, it will send them relevant information. You can adapt their tone of voice to your customers’ preferences to make their interactions and feedback more engaging and fun.

Finally, don’t forget to integrate online and offline marketing efforts to build relationships across multiple channels. For example, many brands are still designing original business cards, sending their catalogs via direct mail, or using pop-up shops to increase their reach. So, why not use these marketing tactics to bring value to customers and increase conversions? For example, you could add a QR code to your printed marketing materials to guide a customer to a dedicated landing page, where they could find relevant information, content, discounts or coupons. 

Customize the Entire Buyer Journey

Today’s customers are more demanding. To buy from a brand, they expect it to provide them with highly personalized and valuable buying experiences. And, a great majority of them are willing to give their personal information and pay more to get relevant deals.

Now, there are numerous ways to personalize their buying journey, from the awareness phase to their conversion

There are numerous ways to do so.

For starters, you could recommend products based on customers’ previous purchases. You could send them relevant newsletters and discounts, according to what they browsed or purchased on your website.

You could recommend products that are relevant to the one they’ve put in their shopping cart. For example, if they’re buying a lamp, why not offer them batteries?

The same goes for the content they’re reading. Add “related content” links to your website so users can easily find more relevant content on your site and spend more time on it.

Let Customers Participate in the Personalization Process

This is an amazing way to engage your target audiences.

For example, use the abovementioned chatbots to gamify their browsing experiences. This is an amazing opportunity to ask them about their preferences and needs and provide them with relevant products. For example, Sephora’s bot sends a brief survey to users and recommends products based on their answers.

Another amazing option is integrating a quiz with your website. This is what popular brands like Warby Parker do. Namely, a customer first needs to choose whether they’re interested in male or female glasses. Then, they further ask them numerous questions about their face width, their preferred shapes, materials, and colors of a frame, and so forth. 

Finally, host a giveaway. To make it more intriguing, you could gamify it. In other words, instead of giving the prizes away, you should encourage users to compete for them. There are different forms of social media contest ideas that may work for you, from leaving comments and sharing your Facebook post to creating original user-generated content.

Conclusions

It’s your job as a brand to provide your customers with highly personalized buying experiences. 

For starters, you need to learn more about your customers. Do thorough market research to find out more about them, segment them, and create solid buyer personas. 

Based on the data you collect, focus on delivering relevant shopping experiences. This means providing 24/7, multi-channel customer support and integrating online and offline marketing tactics. Track users’ interactions with your website and provide relevant product and content recommendations based on them.

Give users an opportunity to participate in the personalization process themselves by using polls, quizzes, surveys, and online contests.

Finally, don’t forget that there is no uniform marketing strategy. Test the performance of these tactics regularly and collect customer feedback to make your marketing tactics more relevant.