Why Brands Can't Afford To Ignore 1:1 Personalisation Any Longer

26 Apr, 2024

In today's crowded digital landscape, customers expect brands to deliver personalised experiences tailored just for them. Gone are the days of generic, one-size-fits-all marketing campaigns, argues Michael Le, Director of Strategy Media & Tech at Movable Ink

The stats speak for themselves - 68% of customers are likely to be more loyal and purchase more from brands that build a personal connection with them. Personalisation is no longer a nice-to-have, it's an essential requirement for driving engagement, conversions, and lasting customer relationships.

Yet many brands still struggle to implement personalisation effectively. Some get stuck in the cycle of basic segmentation tactics like using a customer's first name in email communications. While better than no personalisation at all, this represents just the tip of the iceberg in terms of delivering truly individualised experiences.

To stay competitive and meet rising customer expectations, brands must evolve their personalisation strategies. This means going beyond surface-level tactics to leverage all available first-party, third-party, and real-time behavioural data to shape smart 1:1 journeys uniquely tailored to each individual consumer's needs and preferences.

The good news is that advances in technology have made sophisticated personalisation more achievable than ever before. AI and machine learning can process massive volumes of data to predict the most pertinent content and offers to serve each customer at the perfect time. Real-time personalisation allows messaging to automatically update based on factors like location, weather, pricing changes and more.

I have been fortunate to have had a frontrow seat as leading brands across industries implement cutting-edge personalisation campaigns. I've seen financial services companies transform stale membership emails into hyper-personalised monthly investment snapshots. Leading retailers are now able to predict exactly which product categories will most interest different customer segments to maximise discovery and spending. The most innovative travel brands have mastered adjusting email creative in real-time based on up-to-the-minute flight changes or destination weather. I have personally also helped clients power tailored recommendations for streaming platforms, showcasing the shows customers are likely to want to explore.

In my previous role at Amazon Music, I directly encountered Amazon's leadership principle of customer obsession.

Amazon exemplifies a brand constantly striving to push boundaries and maintain customer trust. At the outset of their personalisation journey, Amazon Music had five million newsletter subscribers, alongside insights into listening habits. The challenge was to efficiently access this data and translate it into visually compelling email content. By harnessing technology like Movable Ink, the team developed automated, scalable campaigns. These initiatives personalised the listener's experience, enhancing content discovery within emails. With a vast catalogue of over 90 million songs, tailored recommendations streamlined options, improving the overall customer experience. By innovating new personalisation models for music recommendations, Amazon Music saw a 682% increase in click-through rates and a 69% rise in playback activity.

The possibilities for 1:1 personalisation are limitless when you have the right data, creative capabilities and technology solutions in place. Brands that embrace advanced personalisation see massive gains in customer engagement, loyalty and revenue as a result.

There are simple steps that can be adopted to take your brand’s personalisation to the next level, no matter where your marketing team is on their journey. This Start-to-Finish Guide to 1:1 Personalization provides a good roadmap for implementing world-class personalised marketing from first impression to conversion.

Customers today won't settle for irrelevant, generic messaging. They expect brands to know them on a 1:1 level and market to them accordingly. By making personalisation a core priority, companies can build the deep customer intelligence and experience delivery capabilities required to thrive in today's experience economy.