Progressing to Personalisation 2.0

You may not have made your way to the dizzying heights of Personalisation 2.0 yet, but don’t worry there aren’t many marketers out there who have! But if you are keen to find out what it takes to achieve the nirvana of personalisation, this blog is the one for you! Alternatively, if you are just looking to get started with personalisation, check out this blog, or if you are looking to take the next step to multi-channel personalisation, this article gives you hints and tips to help you get there.

What is Personalisation 2.0?

Predictive algorithms for behavioural targeting designed to engage and retain visitors, including integration with third-party applications. That sounds complex, but what it really means for your customers is an immersive experience, integrated into other apps, applying to both the digital and physical world. It is an experience that removes all frustrations from the brand / customer relationship, with customers no longer needing to consciously engage with your brand.

Immersing Your Customers

The aim of Personalisation 2.0 is to create an even richer customer experience by combining all the customer data you have readily available and making it accessible in other environments, like apps. Now this really poses a big change and the biggest shift will be the cultural one within your business. It requires a completely different way of thinking about your customer and understanding on a new level how they interact with you. It will be scary, but worth it!

So when we think about customer journeys, we should consider what applications, systems, methods, locations, efforts and challenges customers go through in relation to your brand’s products or services. Then you need to be creative and think about how you can immerse your customer in your brand in ways that are both useful and relevant.

Imagine this, you’ve just run out of milk, your fridge knows and displays an option to add organic milk (because it knows you bought organic last time) to your online shopping basket. In this interaction, a customer may not even realise they are interacting with a brand, it is just effortless, and that is what Personalisation 2.0 is all about.

The Practical Side of Personalisation 2.0

The one thing that is absolutely essential to achieving Personalisation 2.0 is a data layer that can be made available to third parties. There are several options when it comes to making a decision on the technical side of personalisation, but the big decision is if you go for an in-house data layer that is easily exposed in real-time, or whether you would prefer using a third-party system. Whatever decision you make, ensure it is one that has internal buy-in.

Data Privacy and Personalisation 2.0 – A Match Made in Heaven?

Within any organisation, Personalisation 2.0 is quite clearly reliant on access to a vast amount of data, so of course the topic of data privacy is likely to come into play.

At RedEye, we can see two potential scenarios unfolding regarding consumers and the use of their data; it will either be the biggest blocker to the success of Personalisation 2.0, or people will consider the privacy of their data to be less and less important.

Brands are naturally cautious, and rightly so, when using customer data, but customer behaviour is shifting. Your customers probably want a personalised, immersive experience, as much as you want to give them one. Users are becoming more willing to disclose information about themselves, if they are getting something in return, it’s a mutually valuable exchange. Fingers crossed this is a pattern that is set to continue.