There has been a shift in customer engagement – it’s moved beyond transactional relationships over to personalized experiential relationships. The frontrunner of this shift, no points for guessing, is personalized engagement. With 76% consumers more likely to consider purchasing from brands that personalize (McKinsey), we’re not surprised.
Personalization at scale has seen many forms. Gone are the days when personalization attributes were {first name} and {last name}. Triggered messages and behavioral engagement are most marketers’ go-to personalization tools today. Customer journeys are for more refined engagement. Yet, no matter the maturity, personalization at scale has only taken the form of text until now. That’s where industry-leading marketers are going beyond and taking the next big leap in customer engagement.
Rise of visual personalization
Brands need to move beyond text-based personalization to visual personalization at scale. Deemed to be one of the most mature stages of personalization, visual personalization is increasingly gaining steam. Most consumers are able to identify and look past conventional personalized communication.
Visual personalization, in contrast, stands out. In the world of marketing, visual personalization is a novelty that gives. Not just is it completely new, it’s almost unbelievable for most marketers. According to Vizard’s analysis, visual personalization shows a 50% higher click-through rate than non-visual personalization. That’s enough reason to implement it already.
Implementing visual personalization: Key attributes
1. Personalizing for people
If Sam were to engage with a message by one of the many brands she transacts with, which of the 2 would she engage with better? There’s a 50% greater chance she’d go with option 2.
People love being spoken to directly by their names. To see their names on the visual marks hyper-personalization. This is a great way to build on the relationship, delight consumers and increase engagement.
2. Personalizing by products
What happened when Bella added a T-Shirt to her cart and abandoned the cart? Conventionally, a brand alerts her about her abandoned cart item via a notification textually. Visual personalization goes beyond. It entails brands visually displaying the exact item chosen by Bella in the reminder creative.
Pro-tip: Throw in an incentive to further increase the odds of conversion.
3. Personalizing offers
Why should all offer and incentive creatives look the same, when the offers themselves can be personalized? With rich customer data available, marketers should use the opportunity to personalize offers both visually and in the system. This could be on the basis of people, demographics, loyalty tiers, product ranges, stores and about any data point you’d like to use. An instance of one could be: the higher the product margin, the greater the reward you can offer. Which means based on what’s in the cart–headphones or a pair of sunglasses, brands can offer variable discounts on each product.
4. Personalizing by geography
It’s sale time! Sephora is running discounts across the country in every city. Katherine’s in San Francisco. Her friend, Marie, who is also a Sephora shopper, is in New York. Should both sale announcements look the same for Katherine and Marie? You guessed it–they shouldn’t. Here’s what they can look like instead.
As we make the shift towards the experience economy, visual personalization will come across as the key differentiator. Visual personalization isn’t the future of engagement anymore. It’s the present.
Marketing leaders have begun implementing it to see incredible results. It isn’t a choice anymore. It’s your lowest-hanging moat.
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