Creating tailored digital content that enhances your customer experience begins with you first seeking to understand your customers’ needs and motivations.
If you can deeply understand who your customers are, you can create content that speaks to them directly and improves their engagement and loyalty to your brand.
Your potential customers can gather quality information instantly through digital channels. As a result, your customers are better informed and spend less time meeting with potential suppliers and sales reps.
Hence, to stand out and gain a competitive edge, you must use personalisation to capture the attention of potential customers and make valuable content easier to find so your customers and prospects can make informed and more efficient buying decisions.
But what is digital content personalisation? And how can you do it on your website, emails, and advertising campaigns without appearing pushy and intense?
In this post, we’ll discuss in detail what digital content personalisation is, the types and benefits, and how to tailor it to enhance your customer’s experience, keeping you first place in their minds.
Let’s begin!
Overview of digital content personalisation
The Content Marketing Institute defines content personalisation or customisation as:
“...a strategy that relies on visitor data to deliver relevant content based on audience interests and motivations… It’s a user experience shortcut that connects your audience with the information it needs more quickly, enhancing the chance of converting the lead.”
You must have seen this in action – your name in an email, pages tailored to your navigation, banners, or signage with recommended purchases are just a few examples.
Using Netflix for context, what you see on Netflix is different from what other users see. The presented content is automatically adjusted based on location, devices, interactions, and other records.
Netflix might present one view to a person based on how they interacted with their platform and their data about the person (Image I) and then give another view to a different person based on specific factors already explained (image II). This is personalisation at its finest.
Before now, achieving such personalised content and experiences that speak to customers was a challenge.
But today, technology makes it easier for businesses to tailor their content to enhance their target audience experience, giving companies an edge over their competition.
Furthermore, a report by McKinsey states that companies that get personalisation right generate 40% more revenue than average players.
From the customer perspective, a personalisation report by Exploding Topics states that 60% of consumers say they’ll become repeat customers after a personalised shopping experience.
You can see from these stats that personalisation is not an option but a requirement that serious companies should implement in their marketing efforts and advertising campaigns.
The exciting thing is that there’s no one way or platform to deliver content that enhances the customer personalisation experience. The channels are numerous, from the digital signage you install in your physical store to your social media page and website.
Also, note that each customer will respond differently to different types and degrees of customisation; hence, businesses must find out what these are so their customisation efforts hit a bullseye.
Types of personalised digital content
Content personalisation can take many shapes, but they all relate to audience segmentation. Here, we will discuss the most important types.
Personalisation based on interest and industry
This is the most prevalent type of audience segmentation. It is not hyper-specific, but it does help in personalising your content toward your target customers rather than trying to cater to everyone.
Digital content that is segment or industry-specific is highly shareable. As a business, if you wish to grow your brand authority in your industry and among your target audience, consider developing industry-specific content to capture your target audience’s interest and demonstrate your expertise in this field.
This type of content personalisation might not be specific enough to bring in target individual leads. Still, it will help you bring new visitors to your website and social media page and eventually help you generate more qualified leads.
For example, Arby, the world’s second-largest sandwich restaurant brand, with more than 3,500 locations in nine countries, has a unique approach to creating content, and social listening is a component of the process.
The fast food chain focuses on specialised interest areas that have little to do with promoting the latest additions to its menu.
Instead, it plays off pop culture with a creative collection of images, GIFs, and videos referencing anything from gaming and anime to wrestling and comic books.
If Arby tweets about anime, some of its followers might recommend that a future tweet mention Sailor Moon. And if enough of its followers ask for it, they will comply.
For Arby, they don’t just set it and forget it. They go through each comment and have a tagging categorisation system. If they see a groundswell for a piece of content their audience wants, they’ll work on creating it.
Here is an example with its “Let’s go, Samson!” tweet
Arby achieved great success with its social media campaigns focused on small, geeky niches because its content used humour and was spot on. They wouldn’t have had so much success with their campaigns if they had gone the traditional route of “Buy our X because X,” as many other brands do.
Personalised digital signage
Netflix and Amazon aren’t the only companies serving customers with personalised content. Digital personalised content is now expected everywhere, from restaurants to beauty shops to hotels. Everyone wants access to relevant, timely information.
Digital signage is a practical yet affordable solution enabling businesses to personalise digital content to customers based on different triggers, including data, IoT sensors, and more.
To give you some context, let’s say you own a retail outlet and a customer is browsing a particular section of your store; an IoT sensor can detect this and adjust the content on nearby digital screens to match the customer’s interests or preferences.
This display screen can also be more interactive, so customers can tap it to see different colours and sizes in real time.
The aim is to create a more engaging and tailored experience for customers while they explore and interact with products in the store.
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Personalisation based on the marketing funnel stage
Whether or not you have a B2B business or a B2C, personalising your content can be an excellent method to nurture your leads.
For instance, you might create digital content to help generate brand awareness for your business, enticing a larger audience to download a lead magnet. Or you might create one to target your customers according to where they are in the sales process.
When they click on the lead magnet, they trigger a semi-personalised sequence of 4-6 emails that you set up to introduce them more to your brands and the services you offer.
If your prospect is at the top of the funnel, they’re more likely to respond to blog posts and articles that flap around the topic of your brand.
Those in the middle of the funnel might respond to content like white papers, and those at the bottom will relate to content focusing on your goods and services.
Those at the top of the funnel might not respond well to the customised content for those ready to buy. It takes some effort to get everything set up correctly, but once it is done, you don’t have to do anything to keep it running because the process is largely automated.
In the image below, you will see how different types of content match different marketing funnel stages.
Personalised emails
Emails allow you to speak directly to your customers. Inserting the customer names using features like [First Name] in email marketing software makes your message more personal.
It allows your customers to feel like you are speaking to them and no one else.
While sending tailored emails to many prospects and customers might sound intimidating, it’s pretty easy using the automation features available on most email marketing platforms.
As described above with the marketing funnel email sequence, emails can be triggered based on several other user behaviours, including recent purchases, browsing history, or cart abandonment.
Insertion-based personalisation
This is a more generic form of personalisation that considers visitors’ geographical information. Personal situations in emails, references to time (ex. “good evening”), or weather information on landing pages are some examples of insertion-based personalisation.
Personalisation based on location
Apps that use GPS may consider the user’s location to deliver content specific to their location. For instance, if a user searches “Pizza shops near me” in Google Maps, the app will give them suggestions based on their location.
It’s also possible to use personalised data to notify customers of a sale based on location.
For instance, if a Pizza chain business is launching a new recipe in its Melbourne location, it can use Geo-location-based advertising to notify customers in the Melbourne area about the new recipe, enticing nearby customers to visit the store.
However, this level of personalisation is quite technical and mainly used by large companies because it requires big marketing budgets and experienced digital marketing teams.
Personalisation based on interactive content
Interactive content can help you gather information about individuals that you can then use to create tailored experiences that improve customer satisfaction.
For instance, a brand can use quizzes to learn about customers’ preferences. Then, by leveraging customer data, it provides personalised product recommendations.
The beauty brand, Function of Beauty, does this well. It asks customers their names and questions about the user’s hair type, treatment choice, and other general concerns.
Then, it uses this information to send them personalised haircare regimens, as seen in the images below.
Other types of interactive content that use personalisation include polls, surveys, and calculators that similarly collect user information, which is then used to deliver personalised content.
Related reading: Top 15 Tips for Engaging Customers Through Interactive Signage.
Landing pages and other important web pages
Landing pages, your website homepages, and other important pages are some of the main places where your target audience interacts with your site, making them great for providing a personalised experience.
The image above exemplifies how Airbnb personalised its landing for users who want to know how much they could rent their property for on Airbnb.
When visitors land on Airbnb’s landing page, the content automatically changes depending on their location. Users can also slide the bar to see how much they could earn if they rent their property longer.
For instance, when I increased the slide bar by an extra week, my potential earnings doubled, as seen in the image below.
The more you slide, the more room you add, the bigger the number gets, and the more tempting it is to set up an account. This fun and interactive landing page is highly personalised and more likely to convert users.
How to tailor digital content for enhanced customer personalisation
Tailoring your digital content to enhance your customer experience is not straightforward, but getting it right can significantly impact customer engagement, brand loyalty, and business success.
That said, the following are some proven strategies to help you create content that improves your customer interactions and experiences with your business.
Understand and segment your audience
Tailoring digital content for enhanced customer personalisation begins with understanding and segmenting your customers. Consider what they do, their wants and desires, pain points, goals, motivations, barriers, and pressures.
With this data, you can create your ideal customer persona and segments, informing the personalised experience you offer them, helping you present the most relevant content, and building more trust with your customers and prospects.
You must research your target audience if you don’t know what motivates them. To learn more about your current customers, you can send post-purchase surveys to ask about their preferences.
With prospective customers, you can try capturing their data (names, job titles, gender, etc.) through lead forms. These data will help you separate them into different categories so you can serve each group the best content suited to their demographic and needs.
Some common examples of audience segments include:
Location
This is an easy place to begin understanding your customer or prospects since you can use their location to provide relevant content. This can be as simple as delivering content specific to where a customer lives.
Age
Use your customers’ ages to understand what kinds of shoppers they are and how to serve them better.
For example, if you’re targeting baby boomer shoppers, you may encourage them to visit you in-store since they are most likely to do so.
In contrast, content targeting younger shoppers might focus on an online checkout process.
Position in the customer journey
Speak differently to potential customers than you do to existing ones. The language you employ has a significant impact on their personalised shopping experience.
Provide value
Determine what customers want from their experiences on your website or in-store so you can offer value they will appreciate.
To do so, you can:
Get marketing and customer service teams together: Let your content team learn about the wants and needs and frequently asked questions from those who directly contact customers.
Listen to your audience: Customer focus groups let you gather feedback on brand messaging, content, and campaigns. You can also use customer surveys, reviews and ratings, support tickets, and social media comments (remember Arby’s” Let’s go Samson” example above) to learn your audience’s needs.
Study analytics: Study engagement metrics to determine which content users engage with the most, which content doesn’t get attention, which channels are used during different stages of the buyer’s journey, and more.
Provide value by customising content for each channel, understanding your customers’ journeys, and knowing how they flow through your website, physical location, and what types of content they use to get from one stage to another.
Learning how your audience interacts with your brand by looking at website analytics and getting insights from User experience and customer experience teams will ensure you provide customers with value throughout their journey.
Collect necessary data
The more customer data you can collect, the more personalised and compelling your content can be. Important data points to note include:
Purchase history
Knowing if they’ve previously purchased a product or service from your company can provide insight into what else they could be interested in.
Traffic history
Understanding how customers got to your website or location provides insight into their interests. This includes touch points such as search engine keywords, social media, external links for online traffic and flyers, word of mouth, digital signage and more for offline.
Customer behaviour
When clients visit your website, see what pages they explore first, what they click on, and what they appear interested in. This allows you to personalise information throughout the buyer journey in general and provide precise details about what each contact may require next.
Interests
Using email surveys, pop-up quizzes, and social media posts, directly ask the client what they are interested in. This instant input will ensure the accuracy of your customising efforts.
Demographics
You’ll need specific data from your customers to obtain even more information about them. The information you get depends on your customer’s willingness to share.
A personalisation report published on Exploding Topics showed that 80% of consumers are willing to give their data in exchange for deals or offers. You can even streamline this data collection process using a CRM or personalisation platform.
Plan a strategy and begin creating content
After researching and gathering data about your target audience, it’s time to develop your personalised content strategy. Consider doing the following:
Map each persona’s customer journey across various channels: Determine the types of content they’re most engaged with at each stage of the process.
Create content for each persona at each stage of their journeys: Make sure it’s tailored to the channel and the specific needs of each user at that stage.
Make provisions for customisation: Allow the opportunity to personalise each piece of content — a name, a birthday message, recommendations, and more.
Remember not to overdo the personalisation. Showing customers you know too much about them is likely to be unsuccessful. Finally, your company, audience, and industry will determine the type of personalisation you choose.
Keep it simple
Personalisation doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as easy as addressing your customers or clients by their company name, promoting sales during holiday seasons, changing the images they are presented with, including different calls to action (CTAs), or even using different word spellings depending on where they are from.
You can tailor the content displayed on your web pages, signage, digital ads, and emails to match what you know about the customer.
When you personalise these experiences, you create a connection with each prospect that demonstrates respect and builds trust.
You can start small and increase personalisation as you gain confidence and learn what works best for your audience.
One of the most affordable, effective approaches for delivering digital content that speaks to your customers and enhances their experience is digital signage.
Luna Screens allows you to display targeted, dynamic content that is sure to grab your customers’ attention, improve their experience with your business and drive sales.
What are the benefits of digital content personalisation?
Besides the many stats that reveal the importance of digital content personalisation, investing time and resources in digital content personalisation is a trend that offers many benefits, including:
Helps you meet (and exceed) customer expectations
Do you like getting tailored recommendations when you purchase on your favourite brand’s website? What about newsletters that are tailored to your specific interests?
You most likely do. This is because it demonstrates that those brands are going above and beyond to meet the needs of their customers.
They are not simply displaying the same thing to everyone, which is precisely what 71% of consumers expect companies to do (personalise their experiences). Moreover, 76% get frustrated when those expectations aren’t met.
Whether you run an online store or an offline business, content personalisation can help you deliver those expectations.
Consumers have more choices than ever.
The fact that today’s consumers have more choices than ever before has its benefits, but this isn’t always favourable as it can lead to “choice overload.” When consumers are given too many options, it makes it difficult for them to decide.
With content personalisation, you can narrow down choices based on customer preferences.
By assisting them to find what they want, you’re providing better experiences — a benefit that 64% of marketing experts cite as a leading benefit of using personalisation.
Happy customers are more inclined to return and refer their friends. This type of word-of-mouth marketing can help you increase your customer base.
Promotes repeat purchases and generates a higher return
Investing in a personalised digital marketing strategy can help you boost conversion rates. For example, the John Lewis loyalty card scheme gives their staff a peek into their customers’ preferences, which allows them to make personalised recommendations.
Amazon does the same thing with its recommendation engine, which suggests products based on your history.
When you view order details for previously purchased products, Amazon will also display a list of suggestions based on what other customers have bought.
For example, the image above shows Amazon recommending an Apple’s Magic keyboard along with the laptop stand. This example illustrates that providing relevant and personalised experiences can help your business drive repeat purchases and generate more sales.
You may also like: 15 Digital Signage Tactics to Maximize Sales (Proven Strategies).
Takeaway: Unlock effective steps to personalising your customer experience
Tailoring your content to enhance your customer experience is key for business growth. It begins with understanding your customers and segmenting them to create and deliver content that speaks to each segment.
Businesses that understand how to tailor their digital content to suit their customers' experience will enhance customer engagement and increase customer loyalty and business success.
You may not achieve a 100% unique customised experience with your content. Still, by implementing the steps discussed in the “How to tailor digital content for enhanced customer personalisation” section, you can create the experience you want your customers to have more accurately.
Whether you’re a marketer aiming to boost conversion rates or a business owner seeking to connect with your customers and prospects on a deeper level, remember that digital signage is one of the most affordable, practical approaches for delivering digital content that enhances the customer experience.
Ready to start personalising your customer experiences? Luna Screens allows you to turn any screen into striking digital signs with contents that speak directly to your customers in a few simple steps.