Mass Personalization: An Introduction & 3 Ways to Implement It

Once upon a time leads were thrilled by emails in their inboxes. And emails with their “first name” to add the icing to the cake.

That was the rudimentary beginning of personalization. A ploy to get prospects to feel more comfortable and familiar with a business by leveraging the classic concept “everyone likes to hear (or see) their own name”.

But we have come a very long way since the dawn of personalization. Today only 8% of buyers are convinced to take action if all the “personalization” they see in a communication is their name!

Today the desire goes beyond ego gratification to genuine convenience. The bottom line is – there is too much noise and people will not part with their attention, unless the offer truly resonates and makes their life easier.

The only way to go about doing it is through robust, mature personalization on an ongoing basis.

What Is Mass Personalization and How Is it Different from Personalization?

Personalization is presenting individualized appeal to the user.

The company collects data about the customers and uses it in order to offer the goods and services that interest them at a particular point in time.

Mass personalization is the commitment to embed personalization in the DNA of the organization. It is extending only relevant content to leads, all through their life cycle and across all possible touchpoints

As you can imagine mass personalization is not a whimsical undertaking. It needs strategy and this strategy involves the use of database marketing to identify individual customers, the history of their transactions, segment needs, and segment value proposition. Then, this information is used to create personalized marketing communications with targeted consumers.

Why Should Mass Personalization be Transparent yet Behind the Scenes?

Let us pause for a moment and talk about personalization in a world where GDPR is a reality and the ePrivacy Regulation is about to become one.

Mass personalization relies on the insights and implications derived from good quality data.

In the past marketers and companies could collect and process sensitive information with relative freedom. But GDPR has tightened the loop. And the definition of consent is only going to get more granular and inflexible over the next few years.

This is where marketers are facing a challenge with mass personalization.

1. They believe they are restricted from collecting and processing data that can help them tailor experiences for their prospects because of the various privacy regulations.
2. The benefits of personalization are best realized when it is a seamless experience and not interrupted by a barrage of constant content seeking messages or pop-ups.

However, all is not lost.

In fact industry experts believe that the focus on privacy is actually an opportunity and that personalization has the ability to be anti-fragile – i.e – become something better and more inspirational despite the seeming restrictions.

First and foremost, GDPR and other privacy regulations do not ban data collection. They only warrant that the data collected is obtained through explicit permission and in a form that is needed to process the requirement of the business. According to Deloitte, 79% of people are always willing to share data if they see a clear benefit from the action. These people would then be much more open to take advantage of personalized offers when they are presented to them. The GDPR also makes data intrinsically more valuable, since it is given spontaneously. Accurate information about customers lead to more effective and focused mass personalization.

Where the question of being unobtrusive is concerned, great UX design backed by solid copywriting aimed at engaging, activating and retaining customers can easily mitigate frustrations that arise from recurring consent messaging.

3 Effective Ways for Successful Mass Personalization Strategy Implementation

Mass personalization has so many obvious advantages, but not all companies have joined the movement.

The main reason behind the hesitance is lack of resources. However, tools like Convert’s Deploy are working to democratize personalization, even for smaller businesses.

But once a strategy is in place to bring mass personalization to your company, that is half the battle won. And here are 3 simple ways to do just that.

1. Personalization of Customer Interactions

Interaction personalization focuses on how and when to interact with customers. As for the “how” part, they usually refer to the user based on certain actions or their behavior. For example, if a customer buys a product on a site, the seller can send a thank-you email with a call for the next action. If a user adds a product to his cart and then refuses it, then the seller can offer a coupon code for this product to potentially stimulate the sale.

Regarding the “when” to attract the user, the best strategy is to send messages at the time when the user will use the site. And do not send out to all users at once. Let’s analyze, for example, a restaurant booking site that allows users to search for and book tables. So, the site should track when, where, and what each user is looking for. When a user stops using the application for a certain period of time, you can send each user a push message with the appropriate content to return them to the use of the site again. Similarly, if a user frequently browses restaurants, but does not book anything, you can attract a potential customer with a discount coupon.

2. It Should Be Done at the Start: Personalization of All Your Content

It is necessary to consider content personalization as a set of recommendations for different types of content. User data, such as browsing history, purchases, search queries, can be used to tailor content. It does not matter if it is an advertisement, an article or recommendation of your product or service. This data can also be used to determine what not to send to users! For example, if they just bought a smartphone, they are probably not interested in instant offers to buy a new model of smartphone.

Let’s go back to the example of a site for booking tables! You can use “what” and “where” user search queries to personalize content, but you can also use data that was obtained by studying their behavior. For example, if one customer has booked a table in a luxury place and another in a cheaper one, then you can use this context to send content. Content that is specifically designed to appeal to each of the price segments.

This is definitely more difficult than personalization of interaction! Because to ensure the smooth operation of various types of content, personalization must be implemented at the site development stage. Triggers for each type of content must be built in from the beginning. The site must then track user behavior on certain indicators in order to initiate the sending of personalized content in the event that a particular trigger is triggered. The Word Point can provide a great translation and editing service with your content. However, personalizing content is the best way to ensure that the different types of content that you create find the right destination.

3. Embedding Personalized Experiences

Personalization experience is the most difficult part of the entire strategy. It entails changing the site based on the behavior of each specific user. The site will look different for an experienced user, and for a beginner since for each of them, there are different desired actions to be taken. The new user can see a simplified interface to learn key functions, while an experienced user can open the site and see the most frequently used functions. Binding the site versions to each user will force them to return again and again.

Let’s return again to the site for booking tables. The user interface can be customized based on tags such as a user with limited rights/novice, luxury class, and so on. Each individual tag or combination of tags can be used to customize different layouts and the number of sentences displayed. Personalization of experience requires a lot of experimentation, but once you find the right combination, it becomes a very powerful customer retention mechanism.

There are no magic pills to achieve a result, which in our case is expressed in increasing customer loyalty and revenue growth.

For this, you need to make an effort! Although all this may seem complicated, the first step to any personalization is to collect key user data, data on user behavior, process this data and translate it into meaningful ideas. Do it right, and you will get loyal users who always come back to you!