Personalisation as Part of the Buyer's Journey

Jeff Bezos, the founder, CEO and president of Amazon once said ‘If we have 4.5 million customers, we shouldn’t have one store. We should have 4.5 million stores.’

You can see his belief running through everything Amazon does; personalisation is second nature to their website and with 48%¹ of consumers spending more when their experience is personalised, you can understand why it is so important. In our second episode of Everything eCommerce, we talked about personalisation and platform with James White of Nosto, the world’s leading eCommerce personalisation platform. One of the points discussed was the expectations the consumer has for personalisation, and how it has become a fundamental part of the buyer’s journey.

Why is Personalisation so Important?

Recognition is a vital part of business and always has been. Before online retail, you would go to the shops that you knew and trusted, they knew you well and were able to recommend products or set things aside knowing that you would like them. This knowledge brings familiarity and means you would keep coming back to the store. Personalisation also causes inspiration and new ideas. We’re constantly being told what we should buy, but generally, these offers are the idea of one marketer/merchandiser that decided that this is the right moment to push certain products. Wouldn’t it be more effective if this is actually based on your preferences?

Current data puts the average bounce rate of eCommerce stores at 45.68%². At Nosto, of which our guest on this week’s podcast is general manager of, have found that some of the best performing landing pages contain elements that either recognise the customer’s previous visits to the site or recognise which search terms they used to get to the page. Having personalised landing pages has decreased bounce rate by as much as 20% (Nosto Q4 internal data).

What Can You do to Improve Personalisation?

Email and Social Media Personalisation

One of the simplest ways you can add personalisation to your business is through social media and email. Every time someone signs up for your newsletter submits their details for a quote or callback, or follows you on social media, they are identifying themselves and providing valuable information about who they are. Through this information, you can use an email marketing platform to send out mail campaigns to a targeted group of people with content and information that would appeal to them, create personalised landing pages and make sure that the right content is reaching the right people. Using social media data, you can find out who exactly your audience is and what they are looking for, and allow that to influence the way you to create your campaigns.

Related Content Personalisation

Related content is something most of us are aware of from using Amazon, and can be as simple as related blog posts on your website, to as sophisticated as the millions Amazon has spent on the creation of their content matching algorithm, an investment which shows how effective this can be if done properly. Content linking can be time-consuming, but with 74%³ of consumers get frustrated when content has nothing to do with them, you can ensure the customer experience is seamless as well as driving more sales.

Geo-Targeting and IP Personalisation

Geo-targeting can be a very simple, effective way of adding personalisation to your website through ads, content, and campaigns tailored to potential customers based on their location. The way this information is used can be anything from a language change on your site to creating location-specific content. An example could be an airline, if the site is accessed from within the country the airline is based, they will want to advertise the flights as going away from the country and experiencing something new, whereas visitors looking to travel to that country will need advertising that sparks their interest in it.

Live Chat

Live chat is one of the most effective ways to add personalisation to your website and getting an in-store experience online. A study by Digital Trends showed that 73%⁴ of customers would rather buy from businesses who personalise their experience. With live chat, you can start the personalisation from the get-go, with a tailored proactive referencing the content the visitor is browsing, or a ‘welcome back’ message if they have returned. The chat box can also be customised and branded to your business, creating a professional and trustworthy look.

Ultimately, the most effective way live chat adds personalisation to your site is through the direct communication customers can have with the business. At The Chat Shop, we match our tone to our brand requirements, whether that is casual and friendly for your online shoe store, or formal and reassuring for your law firm. Through live chat, your customer is able to build a relationship with the chat agent and therefore the brand, gaining trust, confidence and being able to ask any questions they need that they weren’t able to find answers for on the site.

Live chat agents are also able to ask questions and make recommendations. 45%⁵ of online shoppers are more likely to shop on a site that offers personalised recommendations, so doing this through live chat adds even more depth to that, as the agent can ask questions back and forth, tailoring their advice, rather than just related content appearing, this will be a lot more effective.

Final Thoughts

Personalisation isn’t just an extra bonus, it is now becoming expected by customers. Creating an in-store experience online through recommendations and tailored content is absolutely vital for ensuring customers stay on your website, and ultimately getting them to make that purchase.

Find out how we increase leads by 50% and give an uplift in sales conversion of between 5 and 15 times when compared to non-chat engaged customer journeys through personalised live chat here.

Watch the full podcast here.

¹https://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/web-personalisation/types-ecommerce-personalisation/

²https://www.invespcro.com/blog/the-average-website-conversion-rate-by-industry/

³http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2016/06/74-of-customers-get-frustrated-with-websites-when-content-appears-to-have-nothing-to-do-with-their-interests/

⁴https://www.livechatinc.com/blog/customer-service-experience/

⁵http://www.invespcro.com/blog/online-shopping-personalization/