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Effective personalization: four challenges and a step-by-step plan
15-05-2023
If you have read our previous blog, you will know more about how you can use personalization strategies and what benefits this has for your organization. But how exactly do you implement a personalization strategy? What challenges do you encounter? And more importantly, how do you solve it? In this blog you can read the answer and we share a step-by-step plan for effective personalization.
The first challenge in personalized customer experiences is data collection and management. Without good data, you're sharing custom content for a segment or persona that doesn't exist. But when is data good data?
First of all, the data must be accurate and up-to-date. If the data isn't, marketers are targeting their campaigns to customers who may have left long ago or based on outdated information.
In addition, good data is accessible. If information about a customer is fragmented across systems and departments, it can be difficult to personalize effectively.
If you finally have the data up to date and in the right place, it is important that the data is complete. You want to have a uniform 360° view of your customer, so that you know about their needs and preferences.
When it comes to eCommerce solutions, it's important to understand that no single system exists that can natively collect, store, and distribute all of your data. Even if you are willing to invest a lot of time and money in an overarching, monolithic system, it remains complicated to use, maintain and update.
It is therefore crucial that your eCommerce platform integrates seamlessly with your ERP, so that real-time information about price and stock levels is available. Make sure the ERP system listens to the front end so you don't "mis-personalize" with erroneous information when a customer places an order and your inventory levels change. To create a great customer experience, all your data sources need to be in harmony and work together flawlessly.
eCommerce is more than a tool, it is a strategy that the entire organization must embrace to be successful. In B2B digital transformation projects, it is important that the responsibility does not lie with one person or department, but that everyone within the organization is involved and works together to make the initiatives succeed.
Leadership is important, but success depends on the commitment of the entire organization. Companies must have the right mix of competences and ensure that sufficient budget and resources are available to bring their projects to a satisfactory result. This may mean training staff or expanding teams as needed. It is important that everyone in the organization is on the same page and has the same understanding of terms such as 'personalisation'.
It's essential to build your customers' trust in your brand with B2B personalization. Even if you lose control of your customer data through no fault of your own, trust can quickly disappear.
Customers in both B2C and B2B want to personalize, but there are limits to what they consider acceptable in terms of privacy. Compliance with privacy legislation can be more than just following the obligations. You can also see it as an opportunity to communicate and build trust with your customers.
Given the challenges of personalization, getting it right can be quite challenging. That is why we have drawn up a step-by-step plan that will help you with an effective implementation.
To implement a personalization strategy as effectively as possible, it is important to collect and analyze customer data. Running a marketing campaign without this data will probably yield less results than a campaign for which you use current customer information. To find the right message, it is necessary to analyze the customer data and group it into personas that the campaign is targeting.
The second step is to segment customers and create personas. You segment B2B customers differently than B2C customers. In addition to age, gender, profession, income and purchase history, B2B segmentation also looks at roles, accounts and markets. You can do this, for example, by adapting products to compliance rules that apply in different regions. You can also view a market as a segment. By personalizing on markets and promoting special offers, you can optimize conversion.
Personalizing the customer journey is the third step. B2B customers want customized pricing and real-time inventory data. To grab their attention, you can promote curated offers based on their order history. Customized catalogs and content help save time and engage with customers.
Finally, it is important that you measure and optimize the personalization strategy. For example, you should see an increase in visit duration if you personalize your homepage and the content of your webshop. In the longer term, customer retention increases because you give loyal customers what they need. You will also see an increase in the number of content downloads.
The implementation of personalization can contribute to the success of your webshop. With this plan and by being aware of the challenges, you have a good basis for personalizing from your B2B eCommerce platform.
In this whitepaper we explain why a personalization strategy is indispensable for your organization.
