If your business is your baby, you may spend a lot of time personalizing your marketing. Alternatively, if you are hustling with a business idea, you may focus on automation. Both are necessary, and when you can balance the two, you can get the best of both worlds. People are going to notice personalized marketing. It speaks to them at eye level so to speak. However, if you rely solely on personalizing everything, it’s kind of like spinning your tires. You will reach a few people who are really engaged. but that may not be enough to run your business. This is why you need automation as well. This allows you to focus on other things while your word gets out to your target audience.
Why Automation Matters and How it Hurts
We need automation as a business and brand. It helps us to carry out many tasks during the day. Studies say that 75% of people marketing their business will use some type of automation tool. The concern is that many marketers worry that they are losing the personal touch because of the overflow of automation. As technology moves forward, consumers are looking for brands to use technology so it’s easier for them to get personalized support. You know, like an automatic assistant on your website that answers questions in real time. What customers really crave is more interaction with real humans. They also want convenience, but with a personal touch.
If you use too much automation, your brand is going to seem detached and generic. That doesn’t inspire anyone to buy what you’re selling. If you’re too personal, it might make potential customers uncomfortable. You want to maintain a relationship of trust with customers and to do that, you need the balance of both automation and personalization.
Offer Your Audience Valuable Content
Email campaigns are a great method of reaching your clients. They don’t cost much and are an effective method of bringing your personal message to people. You want to make sure that you don’t overload their inbox though. Focus on giving them valuable content that you believe will matter to them. It shouldn’t involve data that isn’t useful to them.
Most of us are used to getting personalized information sent to us based on a purchase we made online, or signing up for information because we believe it will be useful to us. It’s okay to send transaction data and a personal message in an email. This is customer service, and shows that you care about your customers even after the purchase. You also have the opportunity to leverage that sale and create a loyal customer.
You can use other kinds of data, such as geographical, to give customers a personal message. To do this, create a list of customers and send them a discounted offer. Consumers don’t like it when a company bombards them with messages that aren’t relevant. It also leaves a bad taste in their mouth if you’re too personal with your messages.
Respect Consumer Privacy
Research has shown that consumers want companies to understand who they are. This is what makes brands trusted to them. It’s important to know when the right time is to approach them. It should never feel like the consumer’s privacy is being compromised. You want to give relevant content that they want without going too far.
Something you don’t want to do is send a mass email to all your consumers with the same offers. All of your customers are different. Know who each individual is or don’t send emails with offers to any of them. You really need to know your target audience and figure out what interacting with them will be like. If you push too hard, it could make them feel uncomfortable. If you don’t push enough, it could leave them feeling ignored. Use the information you’ve collected on your customers effectively, but don’t disturb them.
It’s About Customer Experience
It’s really important that you use the technology available to you to make the customer experience amazing. You don’t want to get rid of the personalization, the human touch. You want them to feel special and taken care of. Send offers to your customer’s phone while they’re in your store, for example. Your relationship with your customers is important. Consider what it is they want from you. If there is a special deal on something you’re certain they want or need, let them know about it. If you’ve ever done customer service in a person to person situation, just think of how you can do this with today’s technology.
Bringing Automation and Human Touch Together
There are a variety of ways you can bring together the art of automation while still maintaining the human touch. Insert some tags to add your customer’s names in emails. This makes them feel like the message is for them alone. You can also get your team members to interact with customers through phone calls, individual emails, or connects on social media. When a visitor downloads content from your website, you could then reach out to them personally right away. Studies have found if you wait more than 10 minutes to follow up, it decreases the odds of gaining a sale from that lead by a whopping amount.
If you master the art of balancing these two essential means of communication with clients, your business can really benefit. If you do too much on either end of the spectrum, you can lose clients. You don’t want to seem too pushy or too robotic. Consider how you would build a successful relationship between you and your customers in person. Follow that online. There are fantastic tools to help you online, but make sure to utilize your own instincts in the process.
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