This article is part of SWOT Team, a series on Mashable that features insights from leaders in marketing, brand-building and public relations.
It's a fact: Online personalization is still pretty imperfect. Despite all the data that companies have at their disposal, the biggest players in the space are still struggling to find the right algorithm to reach their customers in meaningful ways. The result is a growing disconnect between consumers and the companies they love.
The ability to offer a personalized experience online is quickly becoming a requirement for companies to stay relevant, which means they have an important challenge to overcome: making sense of customer data. While data is readily available, it's often siloed within different marketing technologies or across different marketing teams within an organization. This creates a disjointed image of the customer and makes it impossible to draw accurate conclusions. The result is an equally disjointed customer experience.
To connect this disparate data, companies should consider opting for an open marketing strategy that allows them the flexibility to pull information from a variety of tools. The result is a fuller, richer understanding of each customer — and a better, more personalized experience on their site.
Here are the three C's of personalization that will lead to the best possible customer experience
1. Customer profile
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Building a strong customer profile starts from the very first interaction. That means pulling in as much relevant data as possible and marrying it to generate accurate insights. For example, at a department store, your customer who's a gardening enthusiast might also be a chef or a soccer player as well. Without building a profile, you'd miss opportunities to share relevant content to this customer — who only visits your brand for lawn tools and paint.
Moreover, your brand should know that a customer profile is never "complete" — it's malleable, building on every interaction. Consider what data contributes to the profile. Demographics like age, gender and income, geographic data and psychographic data like interests, hobbies, and lifestyle (even what device your consumer is using) all factor into building a holistic picture of a shopper.
While much remains consistent, all of these data points are subject to change or shift as individuals grow and develop. Think of a customer's profile as a constant work-in-progress.
These best practices for building a good customer profile apply to both known and anonymous users, who happen to make up 95% of traffic, a Venture Beat report revealed. Just because a user is anonymous, though, doesn't mean you can't get to know them.
2. Context
While a profile gives companies an understanding of each individual customer, being able to meet their needs in real time is the key.
Contextualization is the where, when and why around a customer's interaction with a brand, and is sensitive to many fast-changing factors like seasonality, location and time of day.
For example, a customer from New England who's browsing your site in November might be interested in winter coats or snow boots. If a vacationer is looking for an afternoon excursion, they shouldn't be offered hiking spots or outdoor picnic destinations if rain is in the forecast.
The holiday season is another particularly important time to take context into account when tracking customers as they navigate your site; most of your customers, at that time, won't be shopping for themselves.
Companies need to make sure they're using marketing tools that allow them to gather this data and match it to existing customer profiles. Remember, the goal of personalization is to get as close to a one-on-one relationship with your customer as possible — context is a major component in helping you get there.As more day-to-day activities take place online, analyzing context becomes even more important for you to do. Ten or 20 years ago, logging into a computer felt like a departure. Today, technology is closely integrated with every activity. If you give consumers contextually irrelevant information, it can feel like they're being offered a steak special during breakfast.3. Clarity
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Despite an overall consumer interest in personalization, there is still a great deal of skepticism around the data collection it requires. This is due in large part to privacy concerns; according to a Venture Beat survey, 96% of Americans express concern about data privacy.
The mystery around personalization exacerbates the feeling that customer privacy is being violated. Customers want to know what data is collected, what it looks like, how much you need to personalize the site and why they're being served certain recommendations, notifications, etc.
If they're interested, why not tell them? When pushing them content or promotions, tell them why you think it fits their needs. This will allow customers to opt-in to this process and feel empowered rather than manipulated.
Netflix, for example, curates content for each user but also asks them to rate content after they've viewed it. They also explain why certain content is recommended to them with something along the lines of "because you liked Sherlock Holmes."
Being transparent with customers about what kind of data you're collecting is the best case scenario for everyone involved. Customers feel more at ease and have a better understanding of why they're served certain content. Companies find their customers more willing to engage — and are able to offer a better experience overall. If this capability doesn't already exist in your personalization tools, it's worth the investment.
Brands like Nike will automatically send customers an email reminding them that it's time to replace their sneakers after they've logged 400 miles in their running app.By using an open marketing approach to pull data from a variety of places, you'll be able to make smarter, more strategic decisions about engaging with each individual customer. Soon, consumers won't even have to do a Google search when they're shopping for new clothes or looking for a restaurant — it will be recommended to them before they even have the chance.
As companies' personalization efforts become more and more sophisticated, this predictive personalization will evolve from "creepy" characterizations to normal customer interactions. That said, personalization should feel like a service, not a violation. Maintaining transparency and accuracy will be an essential part of this advanced personalization. Customers should feel understood and cared for by their favorite brands. By building a customer profile that's dynamic, takes context into account and is open and transparent to the customer, you can build great relationships and keep the loyalty of your customers.
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