How to use Personalization to Leverage your online sales

By Alice

It is guaranteed that you will be surprised if you know how important personalization is in the e-commerce world. Get ready and prepare yourself from being overwhelmed.

Firstly, in this era of technology, online sellers need to know some basic information of customers. Whenever you get access to the internet, go to your social network profile or visit some online stores, it’s too easy to realize that you have been treated personally. For example: Facebook knows your information and your news-feed is full of posts that you are interested in, such as new photos from a group you regularly hang out with, your close friend’s updated information… or if you visit Amazon or eBay, you can see they recommend you with many products that you are looking for or suit your taste with messages like “Inspired by your browsing history”, “Related to items you’ve viewed”,…

Secondly, personalization is used as a technique to increase customer service quality. It creates a cozy environment that customers can feel more comfortable and relaxing. For example, what would you think if you received a personal mail from store owner to say thank you for visiting his store or finishing an order. In my position, I feel like I have been appreciated and it makes me happy.

Thirdly, it helps to engage customers to the brand. The fact is that you’d like a store where you are being heard than where you’re always a stranger. It’s not surprising at all if you hang out to the first store more often than the other one. It’s true to any kind of business as people love to be recognized and to be understood.

Moreover, it’s all about relevance. Personalization surrounds customer with information that is related to them, and saves them from being disturbed by all unnecessary things. It helps customers from overload even if they recognize it or not. The more you visit a store, the more that store can understand your behaviors and with predictive analytics, it can recommend items that you are surely interested in.

So now you know how important personalization is in the world of e-commerce. I bet that you wanna know how to adapt or how to optimize the personal customer experience in your own store? Why don’t you get started with these simple and effective tips?

1. Social networks

Social media has played an important role in online sales as a way to communicate with customers as well as a selling tool. It helps you bring human elements to online experience, minimizing the gap between online sales and retail sales in communication with customers.

Moreover, Social data is also way more specific and diversified in comparison with traditional user information. With tons of social user data, you can segment your customers by their personas, increasing customer’s experience without creepily following them.

The quickest and cheapest way to promote your business is by word-of-mouth and more specifically by what they share or like on their social profiles. Have you ever liked a Facebook page because you see your friends liked it? With just a little of curiosity, you will click to the like button and visit that page to see more information.

There are few ways you can do to take advantage of social networks:

You can always nicely ask customers to create an account by logging in their social profile such as Facebook or Twitter. Usually, customers just need to connect to their profiles within a click and all process is finished in less than a minute. This task helps customers save their cart information and help you understand customer’s buying behavior.
Sometimes, it’s not that easy to make customer like/follow your page or share your products. We suggest you to offer some discounts, free ship or free gift to encourage them, your customers will decide to buy faster if they have some incentives.
You can use their information to recommend products. After the first tips, you might have already known tons of customer’s information which you can use to segment customers into separate groups for further recommendations. The way you divide your customers depends on what type of your business, but basically you can have groups based on: email addresses, birthdays, age ranges, genders, locations…
You should be available 24/7. This is quite impossible for a small team but you still can manage it. The first thing you must do is to know your customer’s online time and then be ready to answer them when they get in touch with you. For example, if you sell cosmetic products for young women in the age range of 20s to 40s, then they usually search for your products at their free time after work or school lecturers – in the noon or in the evening.
Have you ever thought of sharing some customer’s inbox feedback or pictures that customers try your products on your social channels? It makes things look real and more trustworthy.
You can also ask your customer’s opinion about some products you want to sell. You can both understand customer’s taste and at the same time you have customers involved in your business.

2. On-site recommendation

If you take a look at Amazon website, you will understand how important on-site recommendation is to Amazon in particular, and world of e-commerce in general . Amazon has widely used product recommendations – 70% of Amazon homepage is devoted to product recommendation.

Why product recommendation is that important? Product recommendation not only brings the opportunities to up-sell, cross-sell but also boost conversion rate, increase your sales and profit, improve customers services and turn customers into loyal ones.

So how to recommend wisely on your site?

Predictive recommendation: even if this is the first time customers visit your site, you’re still able to create personal recommendation. With customer data you have previously, you can create customers’ models/forms and by using them, you can predict customer’s behaviors on your site. For example, you know that customers who are interested in this white iPhone 6 usually want to buy a white or clear case to protect it. With that information, you can suggest your customers with the most suitable items. Of course, this task is quite heavy and time-consuming, but you can always find some professional guide to help you or use some apps that offer you this function.
You can consider to use up-sell or cross-sell. These techniques are used to increase products in carts per each time customers purchasing. Basically, you will ask customers to buy one more product or a bundle of products that usually go together with a better price if they purchase right away. For example, if your customers want to buy a camera then you can offer them a bundle of a camera, a memory stick, lens at a competitive price if they buy them all.

3. Email

Online sellers use email more and more wisely nowadays to keep in touch with customers and increase personal experience. If you want to stay closed to your customers then get started with these email tips:

You can ask customers to subscribe for newsletter to have new updated discount/sales information get directly to their inbox. This is a new way to run re-marketing to attract them back in the future and to increase your customer service. If you don’t receive enough contacts in a long time, then consider to push them with a little motivation such as free gift, free ship or discount. Another way is to ask email subscription after customers add some products to their carts. When they have intention to purchase, you can ask them to give you their email address so you can send them some discounts/gift through their email.
If you haven’t thought of sending customers a welcome email after they subscribe you, then start to think about it right now. A welcome email can really make customers touched and engage them to you and your store.
After you have customer’s email addresses, you can start to send customers promotion or cart offers, especially if they abandon their carts. You can send them emails to remind them or some gifts to make them finish their offers sooner.
What about asking customers to leave a review on some products and giving them some rewards? People trust each other than sellers, a review is more trustworthy than any word from online seller’s promise.
Last but not least, never forget to say thanks after customers finish an offer. It shows how appreciated you are and how important customers are for your business.

Do you find these tips helpful but hard to achieve when you don’t have enough resources? Beeketing is here for you. It’s more than just an app – Beeketing can play as your own sales/ marketing team which help you:

Track your customers’ behavior, learning their interest on your store.
Suggest the right products they want via website predictive recommendation.
Automatically create & send personalized emails to follow up customers based on their behavior