Hyper-personalization: How to build stronger customer relationships

This is much simpler to implement than what one may imagine because it can be carried out in only seven days

For years, companies have been evolving in how they handle customer relationships. They have shifted from having a strategy based solely on their products and services, to also focusing on customer needs.

A good example of this vision and continuous innovation is Spotify. Since its founding, Spotify has had a clear customer focus and aligned its product strategy towards continued personalization to offer a differentiated experience. From the creation of personalized lists with weekly discoveries, in which customer preferences are combined with songs from people who listen to similar music, to a partnership agreement with Ancestry.com, a website that helps users create family trees and prepare DNA-based music lists.

What is hyper-personalization and how to make it a reality?

Answering this question in a conceptual manner is a relatively simple task, but implementing this type of strategy requires expert assistance.

Unlike traditional personalization, in which customers are segmented by type of audience and/or stakeholders, hyper-personalization takes individual marketing to another level. It leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time data extracted from multiple channels and points of contact to deliver information about the most relevant content, products and services for each user. This gives brands the ability to create a strategy aligned with the behaviors and needs of potential and existing customers, thereby improving conversion. Although these campaigns are more complex, they are also more useful than traditional alternatives.

Staying ahead of competitors to lead customer relationships

Some market surveys have shown that although hyper-personalization is on the rise and many companies have started to implement these types of strategies, only 9% of marketing professionals have completely carried out a strategy of this type. In fact, although one third of professionals believe that the effectiveness of this type of strategy driven by AI offers significant improvements for the organization, most (62%) have yet to put it into practice.

Given the complexity of implementing a hyper-personalization strategy based on AI, 80% of professionals prefer to outsource the initiative to a specialist or to use a combination of outsourced and internal resources. However, this is much simpler to implement than what one may imagine because it can be carried out in only seven days.

Keys for a successful strategy

From our point of view, developing a hyper-personalization strategy involves four key elements:

Data

The first step is to collect the correct type of data because a hyper-personalization strategy will only be as good as the quality of the data on which it is based. The more data that is collected, the more segmentation that can be done, resulting in an increasingly personalized strategy. This also ensures that the right customers are reached, making them much more open to conversations.

Customer insights

The second aspect is centered around knowledge about the customer. By listening to customers and understanding their preferences, issues and challenges, it is possible to establish an in-depth vision of the pain points and factors that affect their buying decisions.

Behavior segmentation consists of defining customers by who they are and what they do. Certain patterns and behaviors provide us with a clear and concise vision about the needs of existing and potential customers:

    – Buying behavior

    – Benefits that customers search for

    – Stage within the customer journey

    – Use of products and/or services

    – Moment when customers are more likely to buy/use the products or services

    – Customer loyalty

    – Customer interest

    – Level of customer commitment

Omni-channel strategy

The vast amount of consumer data, combined with multi-channel marketing, drives hyper-personalization, which in turn helps to establish personal relationships with users. If we have information about how customers behave and we use technology to be more efficient, we can define the best channel (email, web, SMS, push notifications, calls, chat, etc.) along with the ideal moment for each customer.

Having comprehensive information about customer behavior is just as important as choosing the right channel for communicating with them. As a company, we must communicate in the way that customers expect. If we achieve this, we will be successful and begin building solid customer relationships.

Unified processes

We must have a clear idea of the hyper-personalization strategy and its implementation in the company. Although it is frequently overlooked, an organization’s design plays a key role in building an agile structure. Companies can no longer afford to view customers from a perspective of marketing, sales and customer success, so they must adjust their structures accordingly and adapt.

Now is the time to stay ahead of competitors and lead the effort of building stronger customer relationships. Dare to go one step further and leverage the opportunities that are revolutionizing marketing, in less time than you may expect, and with a higher rate of return than traditional models.