To quote the king of late-night television, Johnny Carson, the New York Minute is the interval between the traffic light turning green and the driver behind you honking his horn. It’s an instant, no more, no less. And today’s customers only have a New York Minute to consider your offers before moving on. So you need to be clever if you plan to capture their attention.
The core of the issue is sensory overload. Modern customers are bombarded with offers, discounts, deals, and advertisements 24/7, so the brain adapted to assess the stimulus in seconds. The eyes quickly glance through an email, and if nothing manages to pique the reader’s interest, the otherwise masterfully written email ends up being deleted.
Modern customers are exposed to around 5,000 ads per day. But when asked about it, they can only recall a couple of dozen, due to subconsciously blocking the majority.
Relevancy is key here: people will only remember marketing offers that speak to them personally. In other words, marketing communication should be personalized to maximize relevancy for customers. This is no easy task though, as it involves data collection, analysis, and automation technology.
Delivering individualized content is a worthwhile endeavor, though, as more than half of shoppers value personalized offers, especially in retail. And being valued is the first step towards being loved.
So what kind of information can be used for personalization? The customer’s name, gender, hometown, these are general information most companies include in their messages, therefore they can hardly be called true differentiators. Someone’s preferred fashion trends, lifestyle, personality, values, interests, favorite colors, the products they like and don’t like, what’s in their wardrobe – now these are valuable data. The only question is: how to ask for them without being too direct? And the answer is: Gamified Profiling.
Gamified Profiling is like a visual quiz, but geared towards collecting information that’s important for your segmentation or personalization strategy.
People are generally drawn to easy-to-complete content that focuses on self-exploration. With a Gamified Profiling, you can ask customers what kind of clothes they like to wear, where they like to party, are they an Apple fan or an Android supporter, what’s their favorite movie, etc. Such information is a treasure trove when it comes to adding a personal touch to marketing communication.
For example, if a customer answers that they’re into activewear, you can address them in the next email as ‘Sporty’ to foster a personal bond. Learning what kind of electronics brand the person is into also gives you the opportunity to send super-targeted recommendation in your emails. With such data, the possibilities for personalization are endless. Too bad most customers won’t give away their information so easily…
Over 60% of shoppers show a willingness to exchange their personal information for loyalty points or exclusive offers. This proves that loyalty programs are ideal tools to incentivize data sharing.
Loyalty programs have evolved from simply handing out points for purchases which in turn can be redeemed for discounts. In the 21st century, loyalty programs are capable of moving multiple business goals, and change customer behavior. The concept of Loyalty 3.0 — or in other words, Recognition Loyalty — is to go beyond simply rewarding purchases, and instead engage customers outside of the buying cycle.
With this approach in mind, you can supercharge your marketing automation strategy by incentivizing Gamified Profiling via a loyalty program. As people barely have a New York Minute to fill out a registration form, limit the enrollment to a few questions only, the rest would be answered through the Profiling anyways.
Then offer loyalty points or other types of loyalty program benefits for those who go through the gamified survey. Doing so makes people instantly invested in the program itself — as they gained rewards without spending — and at the same time delivers valuable customer data. This way you can personalize a new members first email, increasing the likelihood of an instant purchase.
Interested in learning more about making email communication more engaging with a loyalty program? Or wish to further boost your marketing automation efforts with loyalty data? If so, register for SALESmanago’s joint webinar with Antavo on 11 December at 11:00 am CET. The webinar is free to attend, just sign up at the banner below to book your seat.
This guest post was written by Antavo:
Antavo is a leading SaaS loyalty technology for retail, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and hospitality. They help to create online and omnichannel customer retention programs that companies build brand love and change customer behavior through engagement, exclusivity, and advocacy. We serve clients like Jimmy Jazz, the N Brown Group, Beer Hawk / AB InBev and LuisaViaRoma – contributing 16% growth in revenue for the latter.
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