Three personalization strategies for an online store
Personal recommendations to users help buyers quickly find the necessary goods or services and increase sales.
There are several definitions for this term. The most appropriate, in my opinion, gave Ginny Hopkins in her post on Hubspot: “personalization is attracting a client using technology in such a way as if you are standing in front of him live.” Personalization in this context can be compared to an experienced sales assistant. who tries to guess the wishes and needs of the buyer, the more the consultant meets the buyer in the sales area, the more he knows about him and the better he does his job, offering the most optimal products for the client.
Today, personalization is one of the most interesting and important areas of e-commerce and digital marketing. This process helps online stores provide better service, creating strong relationships with customers that benefit both the buyer and the seller.
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In this article, we describe three strategies for small or medium online stores that are just starting to get familiar with personalization.
Strategy number 1. Build long term relationships
This strategy suggests considering personalization as a way to improve user experience. Its goal, as mentioned above, is to become the consultant who wants to learn about the client as much as possible and offer his assistance in the form of relevant search results, specific recommendations or even specially selected product descriptions that will help the buyer to make a choice.
Naturally, from the seller’s point of view, personalization is primarily aimed at increasing conversion, but it is important to avoid the temptation to achieve immediate sale at any price to the detriment of the service as a whole. It is more profitable to tie the customer for a long time and stimulate re-sales, not chasing a single transaction right here and now.
According to Smartfocus.com, up-sells are 20% more efficient than cross-sells, i.e. encouraging a client to buy a larger quantity of one product or a similar, but more expensive product brings more income than a simultaneous offer to buy several different products at once. However, within the framework of a long-term relationship strategy, the seller does not always have to chase after a large check from up-sells, but correctly apply cross-selling opportunities that will more reliably “tie” the user to the service.
Strategy number 2. Personalize for real
Experts often use the term “wisdom of the crowd" to describe the data on general trends among buyers. The wisdom of the crowd gives initial ideas about a new user that can be used while the site does not know anything about it. These data will be useful to you because they reflect general trends and generalizations, although not related to the individual needs and desires of a particular client. Therefore, using the phrase “People who bought it also buy something” is not exactly about personalization.
As a real personalization, you can give an example: if during the first visit a user who needs skates, looked at three different product pages, then in the second visit, when he uses the search on the site, among the first search results will be just these three positions that he was browsing earlier.
Strategy number 3. Act in real time
This is correct when the seller wants to collect as much information as possible about his buyer. Then he will be able to better set up recommendations and offer a better service. However, this cannot serve as an excuse for delaying the start of active actions - to involve customers more efficiently in real time.
Imagine that a potential buyer looked through several pages with men's trousers, added several pieces to the cart, and then began searching through the search for “white shirts”. In this case, he should not show women's shirts at the top of the search results, and offer logical and most likely to buy men's shirts, based on behavioral information from the current session.
Thus, personalization is a powerful marketing tool that helps online stores build long-term relationships with customers, build their loyalty and increase sales conversion.
Transfer. A source
PS Dear habravchane, this article, we begin a series of posts about what is personalization and recommendation systems. We hope that we will be useful to you in this difficult but interesting topic. We will be extremely grateful if you write in the comments, what questions and problems in the field of personalization are you interested in?
There are several definitions for this term. The most appropriate, in my opinion, gave Ginny Hopkins in her post on Hubspot: “personalization is attracting a client using technology in such a way as if you are standing in front of him live.” Personalization in this context can be compared to an experienced sales assistant. who tries to guess the wishes and needs of the buyer, the more the consultant meets the buyer in the sales area, the more he knows about him and the better he does his job, offering the most optimal products for the client.
Today, personalization is one of the most interesting and important areas of e-commerce and digital marketing. This process helps online stores provide better service, creating strong relationships with customers that benefit both the buyer and the seller.
')
In this article, we describe three strategies for small or medium online stores that are just starting to get familiar with personalization.
Strategy number 1. Build long term relationships
This strategy suggests considering personalization as a way to improve user experience. Its goal, as mentioned above, is to become the consultant who wants to learn about the client as much as possible and offer his assistance in the form of relevant search results, specific recommendations or even specially selected product descriptions that will help the buyer to make a choice.
Naturally, from the seller’s point of view, personalization is primarily aimed at increasing conversion, but it is important to avoid the temptation to achieve immediate sale at any price to the detriment of the service as a whole. It is more profitable to tie the customer for a long time and stimulate re-sales, not chasing a single transaction right here and now.
According to Smartfocus.com, up-sells are 20% more efficient than cross-sells, i.e. encouraging a client to buy a larger quantity of one product or a similar, but more expensive product brings more income than a simultaneous offer to buy several different products at once. However, within the framework of a long-term relationship strategy, the seller does not always have to chase after a large check from up-sells, but correctly apply cross-selling opportunities that will more reliably “tie” the user to the service.
Strategy number 2. Personalize for real
Experts often use the term “wisdom of the crowd" to describe the data on general trends among buyers. The wisdom of the crowd gives initial ideas about a new user that can be used while the site does not know anything about it. These data will be useful to you because they reflect general trends and generalizations, although not related to the individual needs and desires of a particular client. Therefore, using the phrase “People who bought it also buy something” is not exactly about personalization.
As a real personalization, you can give an example: if during the first visit a user who needs skates, looked at three different product pages, then in the second visit, when he uses the search on the site, among the first search results will be just these three positions that he was browsing earlier.
Strategy number 3. Act in real time
This is correct when the seller wants to collect as much information as possible about his buyer. Then he will be able to better set up recommendations and offer a better service. However, this cannot serve as an excuse for delaying the start of active actions - to involve customers more efficiently in real time.
Imagine that a potential buyer looked through several pages with men's trousers, added several pieces to the cart, and then began searching through the search for “white shirts”. In this case, he should not show women's shirts at the top of the search results, and offer logical and most likely to buy men's shirts, based on behavioral information from the current session.
Thus, personalization is a powerful marketing tool that helps online stores build long-term relationships with customers, build their loyalty and increase sales conversion.
Transfer. A source
PS Dear habravchane, this article, we begin a series of posts about what is personalization and recommendation systems. We hope that we will be useful to you in this difficult but interesting topic. We will be extremely grateful if you write in the comments, what questions and problems in the field of personalization are you interested in?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/210074/
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