Marketing to one anonymous audience without consideration for individuals and their preferences is a thing of the past. One size no longer fits all, and that’s truer than ever before when it comes to marketing at a scale.
What is this new marketing buzzword?
Personalised marketing at scale is no longer being dismissed as a throwaway gimmick and is truly becoming the newest trend in digital marketing. It has the potential to permanently transform our approach to media.
In the past, products were marketed to one audience with just one message. It mattered more to be seen by as many people as possible, in the hope of reaching enough interested consumers, than trying to target a specific audience based on their interests, demographics, or purchase history.
These days, brands are increasingly trying to market to the unique individual. While general marketing is still very much prevalent, in many areas of their daily life, consumers are noticing that marketing has been tailored towards them specifically. This is particularly true on the major social media platforms. Sponsored ads on Twitter and Tumblr are often based on a consumer’s location, but increasingly their browser history and Google searches are being taken into account.
On Facebook, consumers will often see ads corresponding to things they have ‘liked’, or groups or brands they are following on the site. The effects of personalised marketing at scale are most obvious here, as consumers are much more likely to click on an advertisement of a product they are interested in than one that is utterly irrelevant to their lives.
How do you apply personalised marketing?
- Subtlety is keyUsing subtly different creative executions based on gender or age group is a simple first step towards personalised marketing at scale. Consumers don’t like stereotypes, but they also don’t like the feeling of being spied on, so keep that in mind when creating your briefs.
- What does your audience like and what do they dislike?With everybody’s digital fingerprints left all over the web, the data to sift through is immense. It’s the thing that deters most companies from moving towards personalised marketing to scale. Services such as ExactTarget Marketing are able to help you bring order to the data chaos that’s out there.On some social media platforms consumers are only asked what their interests and likes are, yet on Twitter they are able to actively voice their dislikes. ExactTarget can analyse individual behaviour, location, or recent search terms to help you find out what your audience wants and is looking for.
- Stay relevant to contextualPersonalised marketing also means being relevant to a consumer’s context. ExactTarget also allows you to present the next best offer depending on things like the website a consumer is currently browsing or their latest tweet about a desire to have coffee. This isn’t just personalised marketing at scale, it also happens in real time, which creates more engagement than ever before and so, more conversions.
- Use and work with social media platformsBy making use of all the popular social media platforms you will increase the reach you have on your potential audience. You will learn more about your audience from their profiles, but by working with the social media platforms as well, you’ll be able to understand how they do what they do. Social media platforms can help pick out insights because they know their product the best. At the same time, they know how to identify specific targeting opportunities and can help you measure the impact.
- Think programmatically and make the most of the connectionThe advantage of thinking programmatically is the value of being able to dig deep and reach the right people with the right creativity and scale across media channels and partners. Using personalised messages grabs a consumer’s attention and ultimately creates greater engagement.
