Personalization At Scale: How Digital Data Impacts Relationship Marketing

Is it possible to have a personal relationship with millions of customers? CM Group says yes!

Personalization is the mantra of nearly every marketing and media company.

Over the past decade, many have invested heavily in a range of digital tools and products promising to deliver more customized experiences and valuable offers to customers — with the hope of yielding ‘one-to-one’ relationships with consumers at scale.

Yet every company in this sector is also facing a growing list of limitations when it comes to collecting the data necessary to do so — from regulatory pressure to sweeping tech platform policy changes. This is all in the context of consumers pushing for more digital privacy.

The question is, how do brands make the most out of digital data to unlock the promise of personalization, without alienating their customers? That was the focus of the third day of CM Group’s recent Signals22 virtual conference, which had the following takeaways. 

Brands are not as good at this as they think 

One of the more provocative sessions came from a keynote delivered by Brendan Witcher , VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester , who zeroed in on a glaring disconnect between consumers and marketers. Simply put, the average marketing organization is touting how far it’s come with using sophisticated software and data to deliver what people want, and those people find such efforts lacking. 

Per Witcher, 92% of brands claim to be investing in personalizing the customer experience, yet just 31% report that “information I get from brands is relevant to my taste and interests."

Perhaps even more surprising - that number has declined in recent years. Clearly, companies are missing something. For starters, only the customer can really judge whether their experiences feel relevant or valuable 

“That's up to them. And so it looks like you're winning, when in fact the data shows that you're not,” Witcher said.

What’s driving this disconnect? One area where many brands slip up is focusing on loyalists, and projecting those shoppers’ behavior and attitudes on the rest of the customer base.

“These are the people that are committed to buying from you,” he said of a brand’s existing shoppers. “You've met their needs, you've met their conditions, and they've said, ‘You know what? I'm good.’ Then you have to ask what about the other 90%? Do you really know what they were looking for?”

Email is everything but it’s how you use it

One way that brands have looked to both ensure they can earn consumer trust while delivering as personal an experience as possible is through the collection of email addresses. But as various executives explained, email isn’t everything, and can become a blunt instrument if not used strategically.

Sharif Hussainali , who oversees CRM Marketing at Kamera Express said his company used to send emails to its entire database twice a week, pushing close to 50 different products. That approach was “total nonsense,” he said. The more you stuff everything into a generic email blast, “no one knows what to look at,” he said. So the retailer recently cut its product email listings in half, focusing on creating more inspirational content.

Those emails have a better chance at generating demand. Then there are emails that are employed to try to close the deal. Kamera Express has begun pushing emails to people who have visited their site and abandoned shopping carts. They use data to send multiple options that are in line with the price points these customers are comfortable with. 

“If a customer has one camera in his basket, we can recommend different cameras that are on the same level,” Hussainali said.

That’s a very tactical way to use personal data. Ideally, the email channel becomes just as segmented as others, to make the most of different kinds of experience and customer segments. 

For example, the Nashville Predators will send email blasts with ticket offers to fans who have previously attended games, and will send ticket-related information to others. It’s not always about selling. The sports organization also sends customized emails giving fans a heads up on parking and even traffic conditions on a particular day game day. Technology and data help, but it takes a human touch. 

“We have a number of people on our staff who build and broadcast emails for us,” said Lindsay Rutledge , Director, Consumer Strategy & Communications. “They all have a different focus.” At the end of each season, each fan even gets a personalized note from the team's CEO.

For media companies, email newsletters have gone from complementary products to central ways to have a direct relationship with readers. As with bands, the more segmented these missives can be, the more effective they are.

For example, The Atlantic now has 14 free newsletters and nine subscriber-based newsletters. The company uses CM Group’s list management solution, Sailthru, to better serve each group while helping grow revenue for the company over time. The best way to do that is “putting the most relevant products in front of you at the right time,” said Rebecca Quarls , Director, Engagement, Consumer Strategy & Growth at The Atlantic.

When the publisher’s second season of the podcast “How To Build a Happy Life” was about to drop, The Atlantic used email to directly reach out to individuals who had attended a Happiness festival in the last year. That use of data and tech feels both helpful and thoughtful, and ultimately should yield more subscriptions.

“Engagement and retention really do go hand-in-hand, which we've been talking about,” she said. “I can have the smartest marketing automations running in the background, but those automations sort of don't resonate and don't do the job they're supposed to be doing if I haven't gotten you to engage with the product and lead up to your renewal moment.”

To that end, the publication The Daily Upside exists entirely as an email product, thus nailing personalization and is its reason for being. Founder Patrick Trousdale said that his team is “very analytical about the economics of how much we can afford to pay to acquire a new subscriber and bring them on. Basically it's a very low bar to have someone sign up to a free newsletter.” 

So his team leans on reader surveys and clickstream data to “analyze the different cohorts of readers who are really true Daily Upside believers versus people who are just engaging occasionally, making sure we're focusing on those high-value subscribers.” 

That sounds like a sensible approach. But of course, mastering personalization, and unlocking all of its value, takes time, and the job is never really done.

As Forrester’s Witcher put it: “Too many companies out there think we're going to do one thing and 50% of the consumer base is going to flock to us,” he said. “That's never going to happen. The way that you win customers is a little group at a time. 

To learn more about the Personalization stage of Relationship Marketing and how relevant engagement can help your efforts, visit the Signals22 website to watch the Sessions and many others available, now on-demand.