A new study into consumer attitudes towards personalisation reveals that personalisation can pay dividends for brands.
Almost half of respondents said that they would be more likely to buy from brands that personalise their experiences – products, services or comms. However, to be successful with personalisation, brands need to focus on the long-term relationship, not just sales uplift. They need to invest in understanding why personalisation drives sales.
Nina Aggarwal, Global MD at Fusion Learning comments: “To date a big issue for those looking to introduce more personalised experiences has been getting buy in from the Board. Requiring brands to adopt completely new ways of working and new partners in many instances, personalisation can be costly. And, as until now there hasn’t been a clear link between personalisation efforts and the bottom line, it is no surprise that many have struggled to get sign-off to progress new programmes. Hopefully this research will give marketers the proof they need to begin implementing personalisation strategies.”
Aggarwal continues: “Personalisation is just one element of the marketing mix but the approach needed to uncover how to personalise can make every marketing element more effective; to personalise successfully brands need to get back to understanding consumers intimately.”
Relevance and balance came out as key elements of a good personalised experience, with 65 per cent and 44 per cent of respondents naming these respectively. However there are nuances according to age and gender:
Frequency is more important to the older generation – 44 per cent of respondent aged 51+ identified frequency of communications as being important compared to just 25 per cent of those aged 18-29.
Time of day is more important to men that women – 28 per cent of men said that the time of day was important to them compared to just 21 per cent of women.
There are, of course, challenges for brands for to overcome when taking a more personalised approach. For example, 15 per cent of consumers reported that they’d had a piece of information they wanted kept private revealed to friends and family because of a personalised advert. However, with the data consumers are willing to provide, overcoming these issues shouldn’t be problematic.
Aggarwal concludes: “There is so much data available on consumers that many brands are struggling to identify what consumers actually want or need. With a growing demand from consumers for brands to connect them to their peers and create more meaningful experiences, brands need to start thinking about personalisation as a way to strengthen their relationship with consumers long-term and gain further insights. Get the relationship right, by adding value to consumers’ lives, and the bottom line uplift will follow.”
Almost a fifth of respondents stated that personalisation was the most important factor when considering purchasing a product or service, but amongst 22-29 year olds, this figure rises to over a quarter. Furthermore, 76 per cent of consumers stated they were ok or happy with brands collecting data to tailor content and services to them.