How eCommerce Stores Can Leverage Hyper-Personalization for Higher Lead Conversion
September 5, 2024
As the eCommerce landscape continues to evolve, businesses have to find every edge they can to outwit their competitors. In the age of social media and digital-first commerce, hyper-personalization has emerged as a key tool in engaging customers and boosting conversion rates.
But what is hyper-personalization, and how can businesses use it to earn conversions?
What is Hyper-Personalization in eCommerce?
Hyper-personalization is the evolution of a trust marketing strategy known as personalization. Personalization is well-established and widely understood at this stage, and has been in use for some time. It is the idea of using customer data as part of messaging and the customer journey, thus creating a tailored visit.
While this is a proven technique to improve engagement and drive lead conversions, there is a limit to the use of data in such methods. Hyper-personalization takes the concept to a new level, using the power of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the always-connected digital footprint of customers to create unique experiences for customers – all done in real-time. This is a new approach in direct-to-consumer eCommerce and is set to only become more critical to long-term success.
Benefits of Hyper-Personalization for eCommerce Stores
Hyper-personalization changes the game for eCommerce brands across the globe, uncovering a raft of unique opportunities for businesses that use it effectively. While each company will benefit from an increase in conversions, there are other benefits to be had.
The importance of the boons outlined below will be unique to each industry and company, but your business will likely enjoy several of those outlined below.
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Boosts conversion rates with targeted recommendations and content
Content sits at the heart of the hyper-personalization strategy, as this is the primary way any visitor will engage with your brand. Whether they have come from search engines or social media, their journey leads them to your site.
On-page content and targeted product recommendations build on that previous journey and individual preferences to help customers move to convert.
Increases customer satisfaction with personalized experiences
If you can anticipate the wants and needs of customers through their digital footprint, you can design an experience to serve those exact desires. This optimized journey will save them time and effort, leading to a quicker and more satisfying transaction.
Enhances brand loyalty by valuing and understanding customers
Brand loyalty is a key part of hyper-personalization. Many brands focus on designing layers of personalization at all stages of the consumer journey – from initial engagement to post-sales – and supporting customers in their goals.
Examples such as Google and Apple showcase what is possible with hyper-personalized experiences that consistently excite and delight customers.
Reduces customer churn by proactively addressing needs
The hardest conversion to earn is from a fresh customer, but the most damaging to lose is from an existing customer. Churn is a part of all business operations, it is inevitable but can be mitigated through effective use of personalization to help retain interest.
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Hyper-personalization techniques for higher lead conversion
Several key techniques need to be implemented to effectively use hyper-personalization. These focus on the individual steps that build the bridge between your customers and you, and it is the sum of these parts that leads to success.
Keep in mind that while most think of B2C interactions when personalization is considered, there are opportunities in a B2B funnel too. Adapt the approach as appropriate and you can still reap the benefits.
Segment email lists for targeted marketing campaigns
Email lists are still an effective method of outreach for any brand in 2024. As users have given express permission to be contacted by providing their email addresses, you have a direct link to individuals – all on a large scale.
Email segmentation lets you push targeted email content to small sections of users without a large investment. The key here is to divide subscribers carefully. After all, you can’t personalize content effectively if you simply split people into, say, male and female users.
Instead, you might segment users by:
- Demographics: Divide subscribers by their age, occupation, income level, etc.
- Geographics: If your products have a regional or cultural relevance, create segments based on users’ locations. Personalized content can then address cultural events such as Ramadan, holidays like Christmas, seasons and weather patterns, or location-specific promotions.
- Behavior: How subscribers interact with your brand says a lot about what type of personalized campaigns will resonate with them. Behavioral segmentation can include product usage, purchase frequency, and previous interactions on your website or over email.
- Purchase history: Based on a customer’s purchase history, you can target them with rewards for shopping frequently or a win-back campaign for those who haven’t purchased in a while.
- Sales funnel stage: It’s crucial to know where customers are in their journey so you can target them with relevant messaging that moves them through the funnel. For example, someone who just signed up to receive emails is likely in the interest stage, so a welcome email with a time-limited discount might lead them to action. On the other hand, those in the awareness stage may need more educational content.
- Email preferences: Give recipients the option to choose how often they receive emails from you, whether daily, weekly, or monthly. Being able to personalize message frequency increases engagement and reduces unsubscribe rates.
- Customer loyalty: Separating out your loyal customers makes them feel more valued. Send them exclusive invites, offers, early-bird access to new products, and so on.
Customize promotions based on real-time data insights
Businesses can make tactical decisions to offer promotions to users that are identified as valuable. For example, a visitor who has lingered on-site for some time can be given a push notification to offer a one-time discount at that moment in time.
Real-time data capture opens up the possibility for all manner of personalized features, but promotions stand as one of the most effective.
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Offer personalized discounts and promotions
As well as creating promotions based on user behavior, we can provide special incentives to high-value targets. Users who have previously purchased or show signals of wealth through their data can be given special offers to promote a purchase.
Leverage AI chatbots for personalized customer support
AI large language models have revolutionized customer support, allowing businesses to offer 24/7 assistance to customers. Whether you use them as pre-sales support during their visit or as first-line help for existing customers, AI chatbots are a key element of a personalized experience.
Display user-generated content tailored to preferences
Businesses can easily optimize on-page content – on-site and through outreach marketing – to target the interests and desires of individual customers. The range of content creation tools available only makes this easier, as it can nearly all be automated as necessary.
Personalize social media campaigns and interactions
Personalized social media campaigns let you take the experience away from your domain and out to external platforms.
Social media platforms in particular are effective as you have access to accurate audience analytics. These can tell you a lot about your customer base, from their demographics to their interests and behavior.
Use these to create personalized campaigns and tailor your interactions. As a result, your brand will have an edge to advertise to them, generating more leads and conversions compared to traditional, generic campaigns.
Implement personalized loyalty programs for customer retention
Many businesses opt to create loyalty programs and forms of gratitude for customers who repeatedly shop with them. This approach not only promotes account creation (a key data collection tactic) but also boosts loyalty through the desire to earn unique discounts or rewards from repeat engagement.
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How to collect data for effective hyper-personalization
As important as the techniques discussed above are to your success, none of them can be achieved without first capturing the right data from target customers. Dats is one of the best sales enablement tools as it unlocks advanced analysis and machine learning functionalities for your business to use.
Fortunately, data collection has become more approachable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as of late, thanks to many robust cloud solutions, but you still need hands-on expertise to ensure proper use of the data.
Encourage customer profiles for preference and demographic data
Visitors who have accounts or profiles have already provided important information that can be used to personalize their experience. This includes personal and demographic data, as well as any specific interests, marketing preferences, and so forth.
Many businesses offer Google or Facebook account linking too, which provides even greater volumes of identifiable data for use in personalization efforts.
Use analytics tools to track behavior and interactions on the website
There are a host of powerful analytics tools available to track behavior and engagement data across your domain. This information can be used to inform on-page optimizations and inform personalization decisions.
Is a certain page seeing lots of exits? Throw a personal promotion to entice them to stay. Perhaps a user has visited a specific page numerous times during separate sessions? Now is the time to personalize the sales pitch and secure the conversion.
Analyze purchase history to understand customer preferences
Previous purchasing information is a vital part of your dataset when analyzing a customer. As they’re a previous customer, you already have a high-value prospect for future engagement, but their buying habits can drive personalization choices too.
This data informs future product recommendations, upselling of accessories or items that complement previous purchases, and more.
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Gather feedback through surveys to improve personalization
Surveys are excellent ways of capturing soft data – data based on opinion or non-numerical factors – that can showcase how users feel about your brand. Typically, this kind of data is best used as a collection to see where correlation exists on specific topics.
Monitor social media for insights into customer interests
Social media platforms are a goldmine of data on potential customers. Individuals on social media platforms are not in a transactional mindset and thus tend to divulge much greater volumes of information than to businesses.
Fortunately, this data is often accessible through various channels. Some of these are provided by the platforms themselves—such as Facebook Insights and LinkedIn Analytics. However, you can also source data from third-party analytical tools and social CRM platforms such as Sprout and Agorapulse.
These all help you get a deeper understanding of that potential customer, helping tailor the experience to their tastes.
Summing Up
Hyper-personalization is here to stay. Not only is it a valuable part of a marketing toolbox, but consumers have come to expect vastly personal experiences when shopping online. If you aren’t offering the same quality of personalization as your competitors, there is a real threat of losing sales to them.
Take your time building on your site’s capabilities and focus on one technique at a time. Creating a domain that can deliver all the rich personalization features possible, reliably, is no simple feat, so it is best to focus on one at a time.
Done correctly, you stand to create a truly inspiring shopping experience for your customers and drive growth through conversions as a result.
