5 Ways to Personalize your eCommerce Experience
Personalized brand experiences have become an expectation for the modern eCommerce shopper. In fact, 64% of consumers and business buyers say companies need cutting-edge digital experiences to keep their business, and 94% of marketers agree that personalized brand experiences are critical to the current and future success of eCommerce companies.
Your company's ability to personalize the customer’s brand experience will largely come down to the quality of your eCommerce platform’s product offering, and the caliber of their machine-learning AI.
Salesforce, for instance, is designed to be an all-in-one eCommerce and CRM platform. Their products are meant to integrate together and deliver personalization on every level of the customer’s brand experience. Their users also get Einstein, an industry-leading AI that makes many of the personalizations mentioned below easy to execute.
Now, let’s get into some great ways to personalize your customer’s brand experience.
1.) Email
Emails are one of the primary channels of communication between a business and a customer — therefore, it’s crucial to personalize them to each shopper.
Here are some ideas on various ways to personalize your emails to customers:
Newsletters addressed directly to the customer
Product recommendations created with AI and machine learning
Automatic cart recovery campaigns when the customer has items sitting in their cart for a set amount of time
Automated sales offer for new customers and existing customers who haven’t made a purchase for a set amount of time
Notifications for company events
Every company’s eCommerce provider will offer its own form of email marketing tools. An industry-leading platform like Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides everything listed above.
2.) Storefront
This is perhaps the most important aspect of your overall eCommerce strategy to personalize for each customer.
Product Display
Each shopper should see a different assortment of products that align with their shopping behavior on your site, and across the internet.
Onsite pop-ups
Whether it’s a sales offer, an invitation to become a member, or anything else — all notifications should be personally addressed to each shopper.
These coupons should be category-specific to the customer’s interests.
Content
The on-site content experience should be tailored to the customer’s personal interests. For example, if you are a retailer that sells outdoor equipment and your customer primarily shops for snowboards, then snowboarding content should take priority over all other content.
Currency
A small but crucial space to personalize to each customer. The currency should automatically be set to the customer’s geographical location.
Search recommendations
Search recommendations should anticipate a customer’s wants and needs with auto-complete as they are typing. The faster a customer can find the product, the more likely they are to make a purchase.
Search recommendations are a great opportunity for a company to make each customer feel understood, which leads to long-term customer loyalty.
Segment traffic
The site should make a clear distinction between new visitors, returning visitors, and returning customers.
3.) Checkout Page
In order to discourage cart abandonment, the checkout page should be as simple and intuitive as possible. However, the checkout experience can still be personalized in a few key areas.
Location information
If your site doesn’t know where your customer is located, it subtracts from the customer’s brand experience.
The site should default to the country of the shopper’s IP address.
Guest/Member checkout
Allow your guests to easily and quickly checkout without being pressured to open an account.
Providing account holders with a faster and simpler checkout experience is an effective way to encourage purchases.
One-click checkout
A remarkable way to simplify the customer’s shopping experience and encourage purchases for returning guests and members.
Multiple payment options
The more payment options you include, the more likely a customer is to go through with their purchase. This is less of a personalization strategy and more of a checkout page best-practice, but it’s still worth noting.
4.) Paid Media
Targeted Advertising
Delivering personalized messages and advertisements across all devices, channels, and platforms is an integral part of any online marketing strategy.
These messages can take many forms, such as personalized advertisements based on the customer’s interests, sales offers, cart reminders, etc.
Platforms like Salesforce Marketing Cloud allow businesses to work out which touchpoints their customers actually engage on — and then deliver a personalized multi-channel communication experience to each customer at scale.
5.) Post Purchase
The customer experience doesn’t end with their purchase. In fact, there are several ways to continue personalization after the customer has checked out.
Personal letters
Personally addressing the customer in a card that’s included in the package is a powerful marketing strategy for any-sized company. It’s also a great way to personalize the customer’s brand experience.
For smaller companies, a handwritten card — or at least writing the customer’s name out is highly effective in creating a lasting connection with the customer.
Customized packaging
Unique packaging can draw attention to the product and the brand. It’s also an effective way to demonstrate the company’s values, and to create a highly memorable experience between the customer and the product.
Product recommendations
The post-checkout page is an effective place to recommend products. A simple message such as “Thanks for your purchase! Here are some other things we think you will like…” goes a long way to encouraging future purchases.
A customer’s brand experience is multifaceted, and a variety of aspects of that experience can be customized — no matter the size of a business. At the end of the day, the most important takeaway is to always have the customer’s experience at the forefront of your eCommerce goals.