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Standing out in today’s crowded marketplace can be extremely challenging, especially for small businesses in a sea of large competitors. Winning customers’ attention requires a new approach. Today, consumers no longer want to be treated like cattle driven towards similar products. Instead, they want to feel special. They want unique experiences created especially for them.
We all know that personalizing the customer experience is a great strategy. That’s why nearly 90% of marketers see a positive ROI after investing in personalized campaigns. These companies earn an average of 40% more revenue than brands that don’t embrace customization.
Unfortunately, over the past few decades, consumers have become desensitized to old, boring methods of personalization. Consumers expect companies to go the extra mile when it comes to creating personalized experiences. The rise of technology is unlocking new capabilities in the personalization space that will allow businesses to successfully achieve impressive levels of hyper-personalization.
Related: Why a “personal” customer experience is critical to your business’s success
1. AI-powered personalization
In the past, companies were only able to personalize marketing and customer experiences for broadly defined demographics such as gender, age, economic status and geographic location. Of course, consumers can still have many different needs, interests and preferences despite belonging to the same group.
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way companies personalize the customer experience by allowing it to be tailored to a very specific level. AI has the power to seamlessly create unique marketing and content for thousands of customers based on dozens of different data points.
2. Interactive experiences
Consumers don’t just want to buy products; they want to have exciting and memorable experiences. This is why experiential marketing has a success rate of almost 40%. In the digital space, the opportunities are virtually limitless. Combining experiences with personalization is a winning strategy.
Coca-Cola achieved this with the introduction of Freestyle machines that provide an interactive experience as customers customize their own flavor combinations. These experiences don’t just have to exist in the real world. Brands can also use augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) to create completely unique digital experiences for each customer.
Related: How Experiential Marketing Events Can Skyrocket Your ROI
3. Voice-activated personalization
More and more devices and applications incorporate voice-activated features, digital assistants and chatbots to assist consumers with daily tasks. These tools are perfectly positioned to collect important data and learn about user preferences and routines through regular interaction. This information, along with preset preferences and previous activity, can then be used to send personalized recommendations.
4. Multi-channel personalization
Multi-channel personalization has emerged as a key strategy for companies aiming to create seamless and cohesive customer experiences across various touchpoints. In today’s interconnected digital landscape, customers expect consistency and relevance regardless of the channel they interact with.
For example, a retail brand might recommend personalized products to its customers based on their past purchases and browsing history while visiting their website. Later, when the same customer visits the brand’s physical store, they can continue shopping. conversation by sending targeted promotions via a mobile app that integrates your online shopping preferences.
By leveraging advanced analytics, AI-based algorithms and customer data platforms, companies can gain insights into individual preferences and behaviors, allowing them to personalize content, offers and interactions across each of these channels.
Related: 3 Tips for Using Consumer Data to Create More Personalized Experiences
5. Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics takes personalization to the next level by leveraging advanced data to attempt to predict a consumer’s future behavior or anticipate their needs. The most obvious example is Amazon, which uses predictive analytics to analyze past purchasing behavior, browsing history and demographic data to recommend further personalized products to shoppers. By leveraging predictive analytics, companies can predict customer preferences, identify trends, and proactively offer tailored recommendations and promotions. This strategic approach not only improves customer satisfaction, but also drives sales and fosters long-term loyalty.
Personalization is more than just tailoring marketing messages to get a sale. The underlying benefits are much deeper. Personalizing the customer experience is a great way to build a customer connection and improve brand loyalty. This, in turn, results in happier customers and healthier revenues.