How can you use CRM to offer personalized incentives to customers?

By segmenting your database you are utilising information your customers have provided. Your customer has told you everything you need to know about them, you just need to listen - segmentation will allow you to offer personalised services and products that speak to your customer, and make them more likely to buy. Example - Location. As someone who lives in Scotland, I start buying 'back to school' items 4-6 weeks before my friends living in England. There's no point sending me your back to school deals at the same time because my children have already returned to school and I've bought everything I need. If you segment your database on location and split your email campaign to run in Scotland 8 weeks earlier, just watch what happens.

Regarding segmentation, in the b2b space; you can name your subscribers as dormant, active and VIP ones. VIP ones helps you to find your ideal customers. Active ones needs to be guided for some cases and dormant ones are the ones close to churn. The latter also helps you to find who IS NOT your ideal customer. So, you can position yourself and share it on your homepage. Segmentation is crucial from day one to understand your ideal profiles and don't forget to check product engagement in addition to firmographics, technographics and others.

CRM-driven personalized incentives are essential in today's competitive markets. By analyzing customer behavior, such as cart abandonment patterns due to shipping costs, CRM can help tailor specific incentives—like free shipping—to improve customer satisfaction and reduce lost sales. Integrating CRM with real-time systems takes personalization further, offering targeted discounts or rewards, thus deepening customer loyalty. This strategy not only meets but anticipates customer needs, making personalization a key differentiator for brands.

While planning how to measure the success, it is critical to consider both qualitative and quantitative KPIs and metrics for a comprehensive measurement process to know "what has happened" and "why it has happened" in that way. CRM solution should be configured or flexible enough to capture such insights from the customer interactions.

Here’s how you can choose the right incentives: → Historical Preferences: Use CRM data to assess which incentives have been popular among specific customer segments in the past. → Customer Feedback: Look for survey responses or direct customer feedback within the CRM to gain insights into what incentives your audience actually wants. → Behavioral Triggers: CRM systems often track user behavior, like frequent product categories browsed. Use this data to offer related incentives. → A/B Testing: Use CRM analytics to test various incentives with different segments. This could be A/B tests on discount percentages, types of gifts, or the offer of free shipping.

Utilizing CRM to choose suitable incentives is a strategic endeavor. Tailor incentives for different customer segments by leveraging CRM data to identify unique buying behaviors and preferences. A segment prone to bulk purchases may value bulk discounts, whereas time-sensitive shoppers might prefer expedited shipping. The key is to offer incentives that feel personal and directly responsive to their habits, which can significantly enhance the perceived value of your incentives and encourage brand loyalty.

Leveraging CRM to truly personalize messages involves surpassing basic personalization tactics like using a customer's first name. It's about meaningful customization. Segmenting customers based on their purchase history and preferences—as identified in the CRM—allows for the creation of offers that resonate on a deeper level. Imagine sending a tailored message offering a special discount on a customer’s favorite product line, acknowledging their preference. This strategic use of CRM data to personalize communication doesn't just say "I recognize you," it says "I understand you," which can significantly amplify customer engagement and loyalty.

Nowadays, I don't think personalization like saying first name or company name works. This is mainly provided by most of the outbound tools in the market. Instead, what might work related to personalization recently; checking product engagement and tailoring your message regarding that.

Drop FIRSTNAME, it's not personal. Nothing about an email that say's 'Jade, I have an offer for you' is personal. Personalising emails using segmentation on purchase history is personal. Knowing that I have a favourite product group and you email me a deal that offers me % discount on my favourite product group because you know I love it, will be personal.

Integration of all customer centric channels to CRM is important to collect and analyze data for incentives. Regular automated checks to be available to confirm all integrations/channels are working and are streaming right data to CRM. Like incentive can motivate a customer, the same when not reaching a customer can also spread negative word of mouth and bring customer dissatisfaction. As customer is not really interested to learn how the backend system works, the flow should be fool-proof to cover all scenarios and highlight exceptions before customer escalations. Keeping the customer informed on all updates by creative notifications is also important to have customer involved and be part of the incentive journey.