One size doesn’t fit all anymore. We live in the era of personalization. And it's more important than ever for brands to deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time. This is what your audience demands, and this is how you build a successful business. And it starts with one essential step: Get to know your customers!
Get to Know Your Customers Day is just around the corner to remind us how crucial it is to incorporate genuine customer insights into your marketing strategy. And what better way to honor Get to Know Your Customers Day than with zero-party data?
When is Get to Know Your Customers Day?
Get to Know Your Customers Day is an annual event celebrated on the third Thursday of every quarter. In 2024, the first celebration is on January 18. The other dates are April 18, July 18, and October 17. Get to Know your Customers Day is an opportunity for businesses to show appreciation to their customers and better understand their needs. This day encourages companies to think of creative ways to engage with customers to learn more about them and build strong relationships.
Why is Get to Know Your Customers Day Important for eCommerce Businesses?
Companies often use this occasion as a chance for customer feedback, surveys, or interactive activities that allow them to get closer to their audience and gain valuable insight into what people are looking for from a business relationship.
With the rise of zero-party data, Get To Know Your Customers Day has become even more important as it provides organizations with crucial information that can help shape customer profiles and tailor experiences accordingly.
To help you develop this relationship with your customers, we've put together some fun, interactive Stories ideas to help you get to know your customers on a more meaningful level. From quizzes that reveal customer preferences to questions about their favorites, learn how to use these creative content ideas here.
Zero-Party Data: An Indispensable Source to Get to Know Your Customers
With the changing digital privacy regulations and rising privacy awareness, getting to know the customers can be a challenge these days. Customers demand personalized experiences. Yet no one likes the feeling of being tracked by websites or mobile apps.
So, how can eCommerce businesses find a balance between personalization vs. privacy?
The answer is zero-party data, which refers to data gleaned straight from the customer about their preferences, opinions, and more. It's a form of explicit data that comes directly from the customer. Zero-party data eliminates all possible privacy concerns because it is provided voluntarily. Also, this type of customer information helps apps and websites go beyond a behavioral approach and question their customers' motivations. When you know the motivation, you can claim a position in customers' hearts and minds.
Also, zero-party data is powerful because customers actively and willingly provide it. Customers themselves are often the best source when it comes to learning more about them as they have valuable insights into their behavior, preferences, values, goals, and intentions that can't be found in any other form of data collection.
But how can you collect zero-party data to get to know your customers better? This is where interactive Stories step in!
Entertaining Interactive Story Ideas That Will Help You Get to Know Your Customers
Interactive Stories are a great way for brands to get to know their customers. You can easily create fun and entertaining content that customers enjoy replying to.
1. Discover customer preferences with quizzes
Quizzes are an effective way to discover customer preferences and can be a great tool for getting to know your customers better. For example, you can create quizzes that ask questions about their:
- Style,
- Skin type,
- Hair goals.
You can gain valuable insights into what they like and dislike as well as what product/service will work best for them. This allows you to target promotions more accurately – ensuring everyone involved has an enjoyable experience.
2. Ask for feedback with question stickers
Asking for feedback is a great way to get an insight into what your customers think about your app or website. Incorporating question stickers on your Stories is the perfect way to do this quickly and easily. Not only can you ask questions related to overall satisfaction with your app or website, but also specific queries like how satisfied they were with their latest order or delivery. This helps you understand exactly where improvements need to be made, allowing you to provide better service in the future.
Additionally, it allows customers to tell you what they really think and share their thoughts openly, which creates trust between them and your business. Incorporating question stickers into your Stories also helps foster more organic interactions between brands and target markets - something traditional analytics or surveys can't do alone. These are especially useful when customers have questions related to products or services but don't want the hassle of writing out emails or calling customer support lines.
So make sure your team asks for feedback often. Who knows what interesting information will surface?
3. Ask your customers about their favorites
Asking your customers about their favorites is a great way to get to know them better and help tailor content that's more in line with their interests. Ask things like:
- What they love most about your product or service
- Their favorite color
- The type of promotion they prefer
Asking these kinds of questions can help you easily create personalized content that matches the likes and dislikes of each customer, helping boost engagement levels.
Storyly has an interactive sticker called an emoji bar. It includes 3-5 emojis, and users can react to Stories by choosing one of these emojis. A good use case for these stickers is utilizing these emoji bars to get to know customers' favorites.
4. Consider "This or that?" Stories
Creating "This or that?" Stories can help you learn more about your customers' styles, tastes, and preferences. You could do this in a poll scenario where you could ask questions like:
- "Which dress would you wear to a concert?"
- "Which look is better for a girls' night out?"
- "Which shoes are the best for a job interview?"
These types of questions allow you to understand what products your customers prefer so that you can personalize your offering to their individual tastes.
.webp)
5. Allow opt-ins and opt-outs for campaigns
Consumers appreciate when companies give them control over their experience as it shows that businesses value their opinions and respect their privacy - two key components for building lasting relationships with clients.
Let's consider Mother's Day promotions, for example. More brands are seeing the value in letting their subscribers skip Mother's Day marketing altogether since 2000 because they didn't want to offend people who were grieving, social distancing, or going through difficult times.
After all, they might be frustrated, hurt, or triggered by your campaign. By allowing your audience to skip sensitive campaigns, you'll keep valuable customers from unsubscribing from your lists.
Allowing customers to opt-in and opt-out of campaigns in your Stories is a great way to ensure that you're sending content only to those who want it. Consider creating polls asking "Would you like to see Mothers' Day campaigns? or "Would you like to see Fathers' Day campaigns?"
And do it for any occasion you can think of. You can add polls to these Stories, asking users to choose "Yes" or "No". We also suggest customizing the communication for people based on their answers to these questions. This type of engagement allows you to foster meaningful interactions with your target market while giving them the freedom to choose what kind of content they would like to receive from you.
When You Get to Know Your Customers, Act on These Insights
Customer feedback is essential to understanding their wants and needs. These insights offer a goldmine of information to act on to improve the customer experience. If you ask customers questions about their experience and how you can improve it but don't take action, they'll feel like they wasted their time sharing their responses, and they might start distrusting you as a brand.
So, use the valuable insights about what customers like, don't like, and would prefer more or less to inform new strategies. That way, you can tailor your offering in a way that best meets their needs. Taking this knowledge onboard and acting on these insights is key to delivering an exceptional customer and user experience.
Use Storyly's Audience Builder to create audiences based on people's answers, aka zero-party data. It's possible to do custom messaging to these audiences later on. Create whole new audiences based on your users' responses to interactive Stories, allowing you to segment your audiences and deliver personalized, granular messages that match what users want.
Conclusion
It's safe to say that when it comes to running a successful business, customer feedback is key. Many of us have heard of Get to Know Your Customers Day, but some of us don't know that relying on first-party and third-party data sources isn't the best way to get to know your customers. However, zero-party data is proving more and more essential as customers themselves have become the most reliable source when it comes to understanding customer needs and preferences.
Starting from Get to Know Your Customers Day, we suggest getting creative with your Stories by taking advantage of quizzes, offering opt-ins/outs for campaigns, getting feedback, or asking about favorites! With interactive Stories now at our disposal, gathering useful insights has never been easier, allowing us all to improve our services and stay one step ahead of the competition. Ultimately, bringing an interactive entertainment factor will help you get to know your customers.
.png)
