Personalisation marketing is the latest trend in digital marketing. It involves the ability to specifically, precisely and with relevance target consumers with promotional traffic in order to increase the likelihood of conversions. Sounds scary? It’s not! Picture yourself in a crowded marketplace amongst a lot of hustle, bustle and haggle. How the hell are you meant to find exactly what you need? Personalisation marketing, specifically (excuse the intended pun!) has the objective to tailor information to you, the individual, so that you can address your commercial needs, more efficiently within this crowded marketplace. The digital native generation, the millennials demand personalisation: the traditional ‘brush-stroke’ methods of marketing are very limited in their opinion. Millennials want creativity, innovation, fun and entertainment when commercial entities ‘speak’ to them. It’s the times we live in.

Global companies like Cadbury’s, IBM and Coca-Cola are running with the personalisation baton. Real-life examples of personalisation marketing include the Cadbury’s Facebook page on which the Crème-Egg product page is tailored to more than one demographic; adults and children. Coca-Cola personalised their drinking vessels with individual’s names in a stroke of marketing genius a couple of summers ago. They also tailored their 2014 Super Bowl advert video to different market segments through the use of different thumbnails. Simple, but effective. It’s all about ‘speaking to the customer’. IBM Watson and Twitter are currently developing an algorithm which can analyse your last 200 tweets. The objective is to ‘paint a picture’ of your personality, for the same commercial end-goals. Dublin based personalisation marketing company, Je Suis Personality, is harvesting actionable consumer insight data through fun, online and retail experiences. The information which is provided by the consumer will be used to transparently retarget the consumer with enhanced future commercial experiences. Try their flagship project, ‘Personal-a-Teas’ when you get the chance.

Why is personalisation marketing important?
From an end-user perspective, personalisation marketing can facilitate improved buying recommendations, address the needs of the consumer more efficiently and with greater relevance, improve prediction of future commercial interests for the consumer, removal of unwanted promotional spam from news feeds, and of course, improved personal retail experiences. For the business owner, personalisation marketing will lead to increased consumer engagements (meaningful two-way communications), facilitate greater grounds for customer (peer-group) referrals, enhance customer retention and provide a new platform for consumer success (not simply customer service).

As the personalisation marketing phenomenon gestates, grows and evolves, like any other budding technology, there are some caveats which are present too. Mistakes often happen when assumptions are made on incomplete data and bad personalisation can be a REAL turnoff. Picture this: the aforementioned marketplace, still chaotic, but one particular vendor keeps on calling you by the wrong name, trying to sell you something irrelevant. ‘Next!’ Therefore, it is vital that databases are maintained and continually updated accurately. Irrespective of these issues, personalisation marketing is here to stay. The future is now. The future is personal.