The Power of Personalization in Marketing and Sales Tactics | Episode 042

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Personalization in marketing is becoming more and more of a buzzword in the marketing world – but how common (and easy) is it? What are some areas of digital campaigning where it can be utilized?

1. EMAIL

This is one area you’ve likely already seen, at least from a customer standpoint. Written campaigns have done this for ages, under the name “variable data printing.”

Everyone from retail to insurance companies to auto-repair stores to politicians will sometimes use a system to put a recipient’s name at the top of their postcard or letter. And now email is commonly handled the same way.

Surely you’ve gotten an email newsletter that had your name at the top.

Most email systems, like MailChimp for example, have tools called “Merge Tags” that can insert data per recipient into an email you’re delivering.

As long as you have someone’s first name or phone number or what-have-you in your database, a merge tag can insert it into the email.

Merge tags vary in appearance depending on the email system you use, but they tend to look something like *|this|* or –this– or [this].

That way if your email says, “Hey *|firstname|*!” then Bob gets an email that says, “Hey, Bob!” and Zeke gets an email that says, “Hey, Zeke!”

2. DYNAMIC LANDING PAGES

If you have a product that’s valuable to two very different industries (let’s say health and automotive), you can use a concept similar to merge tags on your landing pages. There are ways to set up the pages’ images and content so that they will switch “on command,” or display data that is specific to the link someone clicks.

This way, you can share one URL on a page for medical equipment; and then you can share a slightly different URL on a page for automotive repairs.

Visitors will all arrive on the ‘same’ page, but the page will be triggered to change its appearance based on wherever the visitor has come from.

Same product; different prospects; one page. Bada-bing, bada-boom. Commands, UTM codes, and other tags added to hyperlinks in this way can cause the page to do all sorts of things, from displaying specific text to autoplaying videos, and more.

3. VIDEO

Last but certainly not least, video is actually starting to become more and more customizable as well! Have you ever received a video with your name inside it? A few of you lucky ducks might say yes – but plenty of you might say… “not yet.”

Just like an email with merge tags, videos can now pull in just about any piece of data that you want from a spreadsheet.

Recipient’s name? Sure.
Birthday? Done.
Favorite color? If it’s on file, then absolutely.

Your video can weave a whole story around that person, as determined by the information you want to use. Optimum Productions has actually released various campaigns with personalized videos; from a general overview of personalized video, to a stop-motion holiday greeting, to an animated birthday message.

Personalized video has been shown to double email opens and click-through rates, because it’s still exceedingly novel. And the best part is that there aren’t really limits to what your videos can display.

If you have the data, then you have the content.

That rule goes for any of these various tools of personalization in marketing – be they your emails, your landing pages, or your videos. If you want to reach your clientele and blow them away, show them that you’re paying attention to who they are and what they want.

Take a look into personalization, or reach out to those of us that have tried it out before. We’ve got some great stories.

 

 

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Sponsored by Optimum Productions