Personalization is a new trend that has emerged in every field. Personalization in sales and marketing is now the need of the time.

Different industries were already preparing for 2020 with all of the new strategies that would help them to expand in the upcoming years. But this sudden emergence of pandemic made many digital marketers change their systems overnight. They needed to concentrate more on redesigning all their work plans through COVID-lenses, thus entering into a crisis-management mode.

Companies accelerated all of their legal and moral considerations to perform digital transformation pursuits to stay in touch with the customers.

This sudden pandemic is not only causing digital transformation; it is also accelerating digital trends about to happen in the next few years. But the situation demands an immediate step.

Companies working with agility and creativity are those that can survive in these crucial times. An urge to adapt and explore digital trends to stand in such difficult times will help companies.

During times of uncertainty, marketers must try to work with what they know and make the current situation better. Adding more efforts in building and nurturing relationships with the customers is what they need to focus on.

AI taking charge of personalization

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an efficient, valuable, and time-saving resource for personalization strategies. AI can consolidate multiple data streams extracted from different channels, deriving useful insights, and identifying actionable trends.

AI is strongly personalizing experiences everywhere, let that be for music brands like Spotify or fashion industry leads like Tommy Hilfiger. It converts visitors to customers, and most importantly, maintains them, whether incorporated via a live chatbot or a product recommendation engine.

Nearly 54% of businesses are already using AI-predictive techniques, while 89% plan to use it by the end of next year.

The number of companies planning to implement AI-based predictive segmentation by the end of 2021 is far more than those with negative responses. Small to medium-sized companies are specifically amongst those that are positively looking forward to implementing AI, which is, for sure, not surprising, looking at the impact of the ongoing economic fall due to the pandemic.

AI is the ideal solution to the dilemma of trying to do something with less, as eCommerce businesses struggle to manage the detrimental impact left behind by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personalization trends will continue to be recognized as high potential growth areas as more businesses are looking for time-efficient methods of scaling, developing, and improving their economic business.

Focusing on relevant content

A Gartner’s survey about marketing personalization showcases that about 38% of customers walk out of the site because of improper personalization view. When the customers receive recommendations relevant to their search, it interests them more than accepting those recommendations similar to what other people look for themselves.

For instance, an email received by a customer from Amazon does not contain the references of products that people like him would be interested in; instead, it shows the customer products specific to his orders and browsing history. Such customers most likely go to the product page for those products in the suggestion list and buy the product shown to them.

Amazon identifies a customer by his name while visiting the Amazon homepage and enables the customer to view recent purchases and highlights of those products that will most likely interest him at a personal level.

Amazon also suggests customers movies based on their interest; it knows the movies the customer has watched. Whatever Amazon is offering to customers, it is uniquely relevant to them. Thus, when a customer receives an Amazon email, there is more chance to read it and check the product page. For the above-customized experiences that simplify shopping for all the customers, Amazon is getting praised for its efforts.

Amazon and other tech giants’ high reliability and personalization have raised consumers’ expectations. Customers have extensively used these services amid the pandemic and are expecting the same from the other brands.

Conclusion

The COVID crisis has revealed that many brands’ status quotient is not sustainable, and marketing initiatives must mirror the new marketing reality.

Customer expectations are increasing day-by-day and, and leading brands are already walking on the progressive roads. As the markets are growing in each category and geography, brands that have seriously accepted digital customer relationships, just-in-time personalization, and emotional connection are, for sure, going to win the race.

Organizations need to ensure that crisis management doesn’t get out of the track in long-term success. Keeping in mind the short and long-term goals, organizations must invest appropriately in personalization technology, infrastructure, and skills.

Personalization was just an option for marketing, but today it is required to create a positive customer experience. Businesses need to create a personalized, positive journey for their customers by providing highly relevant content, using omnichannel data, and leveraging AI.

As Sears reflected, “An effective personalization strategy enriches the customer experience, leading to greater customer satisfaction, increased revenue, and long-term loyalty.”

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