With the ongoing economic uncertainty, consumer brands must focus on sustainable growth and customer retention. The number one way to drive this is through personalization. However, there are certain misconceptions about personalization that can hinder your ability to build deeper connections with your consumers and grow your business.
In this article, we’ll demystify the most common personalization assumptions and cover strategies to personalize the ‘right’ way.
Misconception #1: Consumers only care about the pricing.
Reality: While pricing is an essential factor for consumers, it's not the only consideration for making a purchase decision. Consumers are increasingly looking for personalized experiences that go beyond the price tag. They want to feel valued by the brands they engage with. 56% of North American consumers prefer a curated shopping experience from the brands they shop from regularly. Similarly, 58% of consumers are frustrated when brands send generic and inconsistent communication.
Misconception #2: Consumers don’t want regular brand communication.
Reality: Consumers don’t want to be bombarded with irrelevant or generic messages. Instead, they want customized and timely brand communication catered to their interests and needs. Here are some statistics from the Personalization Pulse Check 2023 report which showcase this:
- The top three frustrations for North American consumers are when brands send too frequent or too few communications (32%), when brands fail to deliver timely updates on customer service inquiries, purchases, or shipping details (20%), and when brand communication or products promoted are generalized and irrelevant (15%).
- 32% of consumers say they would choose one brand over another if they get communication unrelated to their current shopping behavior.
- 26% of consumers want brand communication at least once a week.
Misconception #3: Personalization is only about using consumers’ names in your brand communication.
Reality: Personalization doesn’t just include addressing a consumer by their name in your brand communication. There is so much more to personalization than that. You can personalize the customer experience based on buyer behavior, purchase history, content browsed, channel preferences, the best time to send communication, geolocation, etc. In fact, over 49% of North American consumers want brands to personalize their shopping experience based on purchase history and product/content preferences.
Misconception #4: Consumers won’t share their personal information with brands.
Reality: Consumers expect more personalized experiences and don’t mind sharing their information with brands. 67% of North American consumers are comfortable or slightly comfortable sharing their personal information with a brand to get a better customer experience.
Approach Personalization the Right Way
Now that you know the reality behind some common misconceptions about personalization, you should focus on creating an exceptional customer experience. Here are some things to consider:
- When personalizing, don’t limit yourself to consumers’ names. Instead, dig deeper into insights (such as customer insights, journey insights, and campaign insights) to understand your consumers better and implement insights-led engagement.
- Use first-party data and comply with data privacy regulations. Be transparent about your data privacy policies and security measures.
- Leverage segmentation to target different groups of consumers based on their recency, frequency, and monetary metrics. For example, recommend value-for-money products and provide discount-related communication frequently to Price Sensitive consumers. Similarly, create “FOMO” through your messaging and recommend your top sellers to consumers who are About to Sleep.
- Provide personalized product and content recommendations and offers on your website/app based on the consumers’ purchase history, browsing behavior, location, communication frequency preference, channel preference, language preference, most active time of the day/week, etc.
- Set an omnichannel strategy in place and engage with each of your consumers on their preferred channel(s).
In a Nutshell
Personalization is no longer a buzzword but a critical component of customer retention. As a consumer brand, you need to move beyond the common misconceptions surrounding personalization and embrace it as a strategy to create relevant and valuable experiences for your consumers. Doing so can increase customer engagement and loyalty and ultimately drive sustainable growth. But remember, the key to building deeper connections with your consumers is leveraging the right insights and having a transparent relationship with them.
Grab a copy of MoEngage’s Personalization Pulse Check 2023: North America report to learn about more personalization misconceptions, trends, and strategies.
