1. Gather and optimize first-party data
Successful personalization means saying goodbye to blanket solutions. This means you should no longer just rely on third-party market insights and data collection to guide your efforts. Instead, you should take a cue from the grassroots initiatives that make mom-and-pop stores appealing to consumers. To do this, begin by collecting your own data. In this way, you can better control what you gather, how you gather it, and where you optimize it. This will create a much more nuanced database you can cull from. Following this, you should also consider using custom software. Businesses can work alongside software developers to design these bespoke solutions. Since software developers are able to turn market data into a functional software product, the end solution can accurately satisfy your unique demands. Customizing your own solution from scratch, however, can be cost-prohibitive.
Expresia’s digital experience platform (DXP) offers a more cost-effective, one-stop solution. Our DXP is fully customizable to meet your digital workflow needs. It can also integrate with other software, which allows you to gather customer insights at every touchpoint and then use that data to personalize the customer experience. Like a control centre, you can create and manage your digital experiences using this one central platform to integrate multiple technologies and control multiple touchpoints. The result is a complete omnichannel digital experience that aligns with the needs of your customers, brand, and business goals.
2. Crystallize your online personality
A big part of what makes a personalized digital experience memorable is your own branding. After all, your branding is what will largely colour your consumers’ emotional response. Without this, there’s no differentiator between you and other businesses trying to cater to the same market. Remember, it’s not really a personal experience if your consumers feel like they’re talking to a generic brand. Studies from Story League show over 57% of target consumers purchase from brands with strong personalities. On top of this, 55% will choose to unfollow brands because they don’t like how they speak online. To ensure that you’re engaging consumers, take time to figure out your online personality. Are you bold and cheeky? Or are you laid-back and sweet? The personality you decide on should be based on data insights and your own company values.
On top of this, make sure that your collaterals align with your values and brand statements. A good example of this is how brands are promoting sustainability as a key component of their business policy. Many companies are doing this by going paperless across all areas of their business. This ranges from using DocuSign for customer contracts to giving personalized digital calling cards, like Doorway does, allowing businesses to customise card designs that they can then easily share contactlessly on a smartphone or computer. This not only eliminates the use of wasteful paper cards but also ensures that their businesses can easily update any changes to their contact details, creating a much more personalized approach to customer support. Regardless of what personality or aesthetic you choose to have, remember to be genuine and consistent. This will allow your consumers to really revel in the experience you’re offering.
3. Embrace AI and automation
Of course, you can’t cater to every single customer’s personalized digital experience. Therefore, the best way to provide a personalized experience to a massive online audience is through AI and automation. Through these two approaches, your consumers can receive assistance and offerings that have been tweaked for their own preferences. One of the most relevant ways that this is rolled out includes product recommendations. CMS Wire’s report on online shoppers reveals that product recommendations can influence up to 91% of buyers to make a purchase. Using a combination of purchase history, browsing habits, and demographic preferences, your consumers can receive a set of recommendations tailored for them. This is similar to how e-commerce behemoths lure consumers into buying more. In a way, AI and automated recommendations create the same ease and familiarity that makes in-person shoppers loyal to local stores.
Some content management systems (CMS) attempt to add this AI and machine learning functionality through the use of plug-ins. This approach exposes the CMS to security vulnerabilities. Expresia uses AWS infrastructure that takes care of the architecture for you, ensuring you stay secure, updated, and consistent without having to design and maintain your own system. Aside from this, Expresia also offers an on-demand feature that covers native AI to fingerprint users. This allows for the delivery of hyper-personalized experiences that drive efficiency.
4. Create an omnichannel experience
Finally, for a personal online experience to be memorable, it must be effective on all platforms. Otherwise, you’re alienating a big demographic who may be using a medium you’re not optimized for. Managing multiple digital assets across various channels can be difficult, but this is where a digital experience platform (DXP) like Expresia really shines. With a DXP, you can create an optimal customer experience that is seamless across channels, efficient on the backend, and totally scalable. What’s more, a DXP is fully customizable so you can integrate it with other tools (including the aforementioned data software). This streamlines the solutions you have to manage and makes it easier for you to digitize your experiences. If you’re planning to transition to more customer-facing experiences online, a DXP will make this even easier.
Expresia’s DXP offers a true omnichannel experience with flexible architecture that makes the integration of various channels smooth and seamless. With our DXP, you also have the possibility of integrating the customer-facing experience with other business process systems such as the ERP, Logistics, WMS, and leverage extensibility to cover your particular business case.
As more industries migrate online, personalization is becoming an expectation among consumers. As a means to add value to your brand and increase loyalty in your customers, personalized digital experiences are an offering every business should prioritize.
Post exclusively written for expresia.com by Chelsea Hannah
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