Like most things in life, the COVID-19 pandemic completely upended marketing. During the lockdown, personal interactions were impossible, and marketers had to find new ways to foster strong customer relationships. Personalized user experiences (UX) were suddenly imperative.
While not invented in 2020, personalized UX has found its stride in the months since. The goal of personalized UX is to deliver digital content and functionality tailored to an individual’s particular needs and interests. It can do everything from organizing a person’s online grocery list based on prior purchases to recommending daily wardrobe choices based on that day’s local weather forecast. Moreover, it optimizes touchpoints in a way that is cohesive across all channels, whether online, on a mobile app, at a kiosk or the retail checkout.
In marketing terms, personalized user experiences reduce customer friction, increase visit time, improve buyer interest and extend brand relationships. They cement the kind of relationships that uplift reputations, strengthen sales, and maximize long-term customer value.
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Where To Begin
To be effective, a brand’s personalization effort must span business and customer goals, audience segmentation and journeys, and opportunities across the entire digital landscape. Oftentimes investments in technology and people need to be made as well.
A good foundation begins with discovery. This occurs on two fronts: customer experience and technology. In terms of customer experience, marketers need to determine their goals and KPIs, review their marketing landscape, and assess their present content resources. A technology inventory will include repositories and sources of data, data connections, tagging and taxonomy, and appraisal of the martech stack that will be handling short-term and long-term personalization duties.
Once completed, these audits will inform the next step: a development roadmap. The UX personalization roadmap will provide a framework for customer segmentation, technology procurement and implementation, and content strategy. It will determine where to focus efforts in year one, as well as in subsequent years. It should also include briefs for delivering specific personalization experiences, creative development, and testing/reporting.
Measurable Results
When implemented effectively, personalized UX can be truly transformational. AAA Northeast is a great example of how to optimize marketing goals through personalized UX.
AAA Northeast, a 5.7 million-member chapter of the American Automobile Association, serves a large part of the Northeastern U.S. It recently set out to increase the ROI on its marketing spend and further boost its membership. Its personalization effort involved tightly integrated analytics, campaign management, content management, and lead optimization efforts.
After extensive research and testing, the club concluded that its range of service offerings would be better served by mapping content and offers to different audiences based on the collection of permission-based data. This not only enabled the club to utilize its limited web page real estate more effectively but also led to innovations such as accepting membership promotional codes from other AAA clubs.
The results were impressive. Overall membership signups increased from 26% to 45%. Revenue from digital increased 25%, making it the top channel for new business. Click-throughs increased by 62%, and online renewal rates jumped by 13%. For every dollar spent on digital, the club saw an 11x ROI.
Houston-based NRG, a $9 billion energy producer serving 11 states, is another example of how personalized UX can succeed. NRG sought to grow its base of commercial and industrial customers through more tailored online interaction. By gathering real-time behavioral data from its website, email, social media, mobile apps and other digital marketing channels, it created dozens of personalized, multichannel experiences.
Among other techniques, NRG used geotargeting to develop customized regional services for specific users. It also featured solutions, case studies and thought leadership content relevant to particular customers and industry segments. Using an audience data management platform, it delivered personalized website experiences to users who were served correlating ads, even if the users didn’t click on the ads themselves.
With content personalization, NRG has seen a tenfold increase in leads per visit and a 3% lift in lead conversions. Moreover, the consistency in message promotion has led to a 500% increase in engagement.
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Change Is Imperative
According to Gartner’s researchOpens a new window , “tailored help,†to use the company’s parlance, can increase a brand’s chances for intent, purchase, repurchase, and increased cart size by 20%. Personalized UX has expanded from an esoteric practice embraced by a small number of online merchants a few years ago to a mainstream concept that is fundamentally changing marketing.
Technology has changed the way customers think. Increasingly they anticipate, and even expect, personalized experiences based on their past behaviors. Shying away from this reality is likely to not only annoy customers but leave brands behind their competition.
With proper evaluation and planning, it’s possible for any marketer to implement a strong, personalized UX strategy. Marketing has been forever changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The time to adapt is now.
What steps have you taken to lay a firm foundation for personalized user experience in these changing times? Let us know LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d be thrilled to hear from you.