Inside the Mind of a Customer: How Sitecore Helps Personalize Your Marketing 03.02.18

The era of push messaging and in-your-face marketing campaigns is long gone. Today, it is imperative that brands know their customers — their needs, wants, purchasing behaviors, and lifestyle choices — and attract them with the right message at the right time.  

Think about your local coffee shop that knows what you’ll order the moment you walk in. Does being called a “regular”, and having the experience of being recognized at your favorite coffee shop make you feel special? Perhaps this is part of the reason why you’re a loyal customer to this location, even if there’s an alternative closer to work, or one that’s less expensive. Customers want more of this personalized experience.  

From a marketing standpoint, customers are becoming more and more connected with businesses and brands, and they’re expecting this personalized experience. Thankfully, marketers can discover their customers’ preferences and tailor these experiences based on analytics. 

A Salesforce survey shows that 63 percent of millennial consumers and 58 percent of Gen X consumers are willing to share data with companies if it means receiving more personalized offers and discounts in return. These numbers demonstrate how businesses will need to become more invested in knowing their customers to earn their loyalty. The tough part is connecting the dots in how customers interact and engage with your brand across multiple channels and devices. If only there was a solution to this problem! 

You’re in luck. There IS a solution – and it’s called Sitecore. Let’s discuss. 

How does Sitecore help you connect the dots of customer interaction? 

1. Know the difference between a first-timer and a ‘regular’ 
   First impressions — whether good or bad — leave an indelible mark. Plus, stats show that it takes merely 50 milliseconds for users to form an impression on a website. How do first-time visitors feel when they land on your website? Do they find it easy to navigate? Are you giving them a personalized welcome to make their first visit extra special?  
   
   At the same time, it’s important to remember that your existing customers will not want to be treated like first-timers. With the help of Sitecore, you can track if a visitor has come to your site for the first time or if they are a frequent visitor. Based on this data, you can tailor your welcome message and what promos, offers, or other content each user sees.  
    
2. Serve up content based on intent 
   For a customer, nothing can be more annoying than being bombarded with messages trying to convince them to buy a pair of sneakers they have already purchased. The thing is, your visitors may have been led to your site through any of the inbound marketing channels — SEO, social media, email campaigns, etc. Knowing their intent behind the visit can help you offer content that they will find helpful rather than irritating. 
   
   Let’s say a customer recently purchased the newest shoes you’ve been promoting. Using Sitecore’s intelligent customer tracking insights, instead of discounts and ‘last minute’ offers, you could send them email newsletters or give them ideas on how they can pair those shoes with an outfit. Using Sitecore can help you link your outbound campaigns with your inbound traffic to give your customers personalized experiences that they will appreciate.  
    
3. Visitor profiles  
   Building visitor profiles is a key aspect in understanding — and even predicting — customer interests, preferences, behaviors, and more. These insights can help you present the most relevant content to your visitors. You can also encourage them to take action that you want, and one they find useful. It’s a win-win.  
   
   With Sitecore’s excellent personalization features, you can turn your website into a powerful opportunity-catching net. It can help you profile your visitors based on their activity on your site and how they engage your content. You benefit by identifying key patterns in how customers interact with different areas of your site, which content they are most influenced by, and on which channels.  
    
4. Social media insights 
   According to Hootsuite, 73 percent of users prefer to log in to a site with a social login, rather than providing an email address and creating a new account. And why not? It’s fast and easier to log in without having to remember yet another username and password.  
   
   As a marketer, this behavior also has many advantages for you. Sitecore’s social insights can tell you a lot about who your target personas are or how user behavior changes with age, gender, and interests. You can use this info to attract new customers and tailor content to them. Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) comes with native functionality called Social Connect, which can help you unlock the customer data goldmine that social media can provide.
    
5. Device and location-based targeting  
   Whether you are crafting social media content, positioning an ad, or deploying an email campaign, your message needs to speak to each of your consumers on an individual level. This is better achieved when you know where your customers are browsing from and on which device. This presents better opportunities and more choices for the connected consumers to engage with you, in the way they prefer.  
   
   Targeting users by their location can help you send them personalized info, translating into better purchasing experiences. For instance, you could learn that a customer is somewhere near your store. Knowing this, you can send them an offer or coupon to their smartphone about a product they were recently researching. If they’re nearby and you send them a customized offer, they’re more likely to make a stop in your store.  

Customer experience is key 

Market research firm, Frost & Sullivan, predicts that customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020. We agree – personalized experiences are becoming more and more necessary to catch the attention of the target customer.  

To learn more about Sitecore XP and how it can help you deliver a more relevant and personalized experience for your customers, contact us today. New Angle Media is a proud Sitecore Certified Implementation Partner and leading provider of Sitecore enterprise solutions.