Fake it ‘Til You Make It: Ecommerce Personalization
Jessica is an integrated marketing leader specializing in strategic B2B and B2C enterprise solutions.
Now that we’ve established ecommerce personalization is the future of the customer experience, you might be asking yourself, “That’s great and all, but my company just can’t invest in that technology right now. So thanks for nothing!” Well, when in doubt, fake it ‘til you make it, right? Your brand may not be ready to deliver a personalized shopping experience, but they certainly can deliver a personalized-ish shopping experience. Through rich content tricks, digital marketers can easily serve up shopping experiences that fell distinctly unique and customized. These personalization workarounds can be implemented at every stage of the customer journey, from first touch to final purchase.
Email Segmentation Your email database is the perfect place to begin your foray into ecommerce personalization. Using the information stored there – depending on your subscription process, this could include gender, city, even age – you can carefully craft email marketing campaigns that are expertly curated for each consumer persona. For instance, with the start of summer, send your female customers a beach-themed email, linking to a beautiful and fully shoppable vacation buying guide. The email may have been sent to a list of 5000 women, but each recipient will feel individually thought of. Delivering “personalized” content through email segmentation begins the customer relationship right, providing content that is highly relevant to them.
Digital Quizzes Another way to “fake it ‘til you make it” the personalization experience is through digital quizzes. Quizzes gives shoppers a guided, curated experience that feels personalized. Through a series of questions, they ultimately arrive at a selection of products that have been choses especially for them. For a brand who is eager to deliver a personalized experience but is currently limited in their ability to do so, quizzes are an easy way to do so without the heavy investments. And quizzes easily improve engagement metrics like time on page and bounce rate, so it truly is a win-win. Shoppers feel listened to, as if they are being provided products that are chosen just for them, without requiring any AI.
Chat Features Chat box features can deliver a personalized-ish experience through literally inserting a person into the customer journey. Using pop-up features that can perfectly time how long a shopper has been on a page for, a friendly customer service representative can offer their assistance right when they need it most. Shoppers have the option to seek out a more one-on-one experience, and get all their questions answered. Chat provides the immediacy and guidance of a personalized experience, but in a more manageable way.
Conclusion The customer experience is already a huge priority for both brands and their customers, so personalization is more popular than ever. But if it’s just not in the cards for you right now, there’s nothing wrong with faking it in the meantime. Strategies like email segmentation, quizzes, and chat features are all smart ways to deliver the custom shopping experience your shoppers want.