3 problems with personalisation… and how to solve them

The truly personalised experience is something coveted by both modern marketers and their consumers. And rightly so. What is the point in communicating irrelevant messages to people to whom the message does not apply? It just wastes everyone’s time.

 

The same goes for communicating the same message to everyone. No one wants to be treated as a number, a face in the crowd, a cog in the works to be replaced as and when the machine operators deem it necessary. Likewise, if marketers can create an architecture around the constant streams of data that surround their brand, they can automate triggers and communicate meaningfully with millions of prospects and customers at once. Surely that is far more likely to drive success?

 

But this Holy Marketing Grail is neither as easy to achieve, nor as actively pursued, as it should be. Why not?

 

It seems there are three challenges surrounding personalisation:

 

 

Customer and prospect data is held in disparate silos across the organisation, making it impossible to leverage the available information for an optimal personalisation strategy.

 

 

Marketers are focusing on the message rather than the inherent data problem, leading to a leaning towards broadcast-style messaging.

 

 

The customer operates in the moment, in the now… in ‘real time’. Personalisation is too often dependent on historic events, which means messages are being created and sent that are based on information that is now obsolete, or even irrelevant.

 

 

 

At Innometrics, we believe each of these problems can be resolved most easily through the use of profiles in marketing campaigns:

 

 

First, a profile contains both static and dynamic information, and is held centrally across all platforms. The profile itself can then be shared with any messaging platform to empower better, more relevant and timely communication with not just customers, but prospects.

 

 

Second, since profiles consolidate the data across these formerly disparate silos, marketers can move away from a broadcast mentality towards a targeted conversation. Profiles also go beyond historic data and incorporate evolving data streams, opening the door for anticipation of behaviour through predictive analytics, not just web analytics.

 

 

And finally, all of the information stored within a profile can be made actionable in real time. More than a single view of the customer, a profile enables you to do something with that view, immediately.

 

 

 

We believe profiles solve all these challenges and more, trumping a single customer view with the ability to act on the insight in real time. Add to that the allure of incorporating predictive data, and even external influencers (such as weather data) and that’s one rich customer profile.

 

For more information on how profiles can drive truly personalised experiences and successful marketing campaigns, read more here: Omnichannel Marketing with APSIS Profile Cloud.

 

This post was written by Martin Wallace.