Why Personalization Is Key To The Future
Of Marketing
By Aseem Chandra, vice president of Adobe Experience Manager and
Adobe Target, Adobe
Whoever said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks was most
certainly living in a pre-Internet world.
Today it isn’t unusual for young professionals to have had several
different careers before turning 30. Our faster pace of life is conducive to
change, and millennials seem to happily embrace it. Truth is, I think as
marketers we need to take a cue and follow suit.
Ann Lewnes, Adobe’s CMO, recently sharedinteresting survey
data demonstrating exactly that need—for marketers to reinvent themselves. The
overwhelming majority of marketers agreed their roles would change within the
next three years, but few felt they knew how to take risks and embrace change
in order to remain competitive. Although, when asked about the capability most
important to their future marketing efforts, “personalization” ranked highest,
hands down.
In other words, we not only need a marketing
makeover, but taking more risks and infusing creativity into our
personalization efforts will be key to its success and longevity.
Not Just in Hollywood
‘Personalization’ today seems light years ahead of what we
considered so helpful even just a couple years ago. Yet, I believe as marketers
we still don’t fully grasp the potential of what today’s technologies can help
achieve in terms of online and offline personalization—and until we start
taking risks and reaching beyond what we believed was possible, we’ll never get
to our much-needed reinvention.
In my favorite movie scene from Iron Man 2, billionaire Tony Stark appears before a
Senate committee to defend his high-tech superhero suit. With the swipe of his
fingers, he commandeers the committee’s TV screen from his mobile device and
projects video from his device directly onto the screen, obtaining the upper
hand during the proceedings.
What a clever Hollywood screenwriter imagined just four years ago
may have seemed inaccessible, but in reality, the technology exists today. This
cool project, focused on enabling workspaces of the future and built
in our own labs, delivers functionality to wirelessly share content across
different screens with the flick of your fingers. Point is, what begins as a
dream among developers can have immense applicability in the physical and
digital worlds. Think about retailers offering kiosks where shoppers can
transfer desired products or outfits from their devices onto screens to find
similar items in-store.
Likewise, it’s critical in the era of the social web and sharing
economy for marketers to ensure they’re personalizing experiences in the
‘offline’ or physical world, as well as its digital counterpart, and always
grounding it in data. For example, fitmob connects fitness
enthusiasts who share similar fitness levels and interests with local trainers
for group workouts. The company’s website and mobile app function as the main
faces of its service, but they place equal importance on curating the offline experiences to
deliver on users’ expectations, providing seamless service across channels.
Daring to Dream
In truth, the possibilities for online and offline personalization
are only limited by marketers’ imaginations. Here’s further inspiration:
Smart Furniture designed a clever online tool to
identify and categorize shoppers’ personal furniture styles. The retailer then
dynamically suggests and highlights products individual to each shopper and
offers a visualization feature to lay out the products in a customer’s own
space.
Redbox tailors homepage content for first-time or
repeat visitors and suggests new products based on previous rentals or favorite
categories. The rental service even offers streaming options when a particular
video isn’t available nearby, as well as online reservations so customers
simply insert their credit card at the kiosk to obtain a previously reserved
item.
Online shopping services Stitch Fix and Le
Tote offer curated selections of clothing to purchase or rent
(think Netflix for fashion) and refine recommendations over time based on
members’ individual budgets and tastes. Personal stylists provide
recommendations that are further refined by machine algorithms to deliver a
truly customized service. Stitch Fix also works to create a tailored offline
experience for every customer. A beautifully wrapped box arrives with a
stylist’s hand-written note describing why each item was selected—continuing
the same brand experience the customer first encountered online.
Take the Risk to Reinvent
It’s clear consumers are increasingly demanding more personalized and customized service in the digital as well as physical worlds. A mobile-optimized website or salesperson wielding an iPad are table stakes now, and as marketers we need to anticipate expectations with new ideas and inspirations of our own.
It’s clear consumers are increasingly demanding more personalized and customized service in the digital as well as physical worlds. A mobile-optimized website or salesperson wielding an iPad are table stakes now, and as marketers we need to anticipate expectations with new ideas and inspirations of our own.
Here, we can all take inspiration from the great Walt Disney, who
famously said, “if you can dream it, you can do it.” After suffering several
setbacks early in his career, he created some of the world’s most iconic
animated characters and stories, not to mention a theme park and business
empire. Not only was he a pioneer in animated film (akin to the digital world
of his time), but he brought these magical experiences to life in the physical
world, too.
By infusing that
same drive, perseverance and creativity—as well as a touch of the latest
technology—into our own marketing and personalization strategies, we can create
the change that’s tantalizingly at our fingertips.
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