In a brick-and-mortar store, you may walk in and have the staff offer you items they think you would like. That’s personalisation, a technique that helps you get more sales for your business. What’s interesting is that online, everyone can have a personal experience as they shop with you. Here are some top personalisation techniques to improve your e-commerce, which you should be using in your online store.
6 Personalization Techniques To Improve Your eCommerce
So, here are the best 6 personalisation techniques to improve your online store.
- Create a personalised homepage
- Show recently viewed items
- Create personal guides
- Use location based personalisation
- Personalise your email marketing
- Create personal campaigns
Create a Personalised Homepage
When anyone visits your site, you’ll be able to get some data on them, thanks to cookies. This can tell you all sorts of things, such as the visitor’s location, age, gender, and so on. You can use this to your advantage by personalising the homepage for them.
Once that customer has visited, you’ll have some data on them. The first time they visit, they’ll get the standard homepage. If you’re a clothing store, then you’ll show a little bit from every section of the site. If that visitor clicks the ‘UK’ option when asked for a location, and then browses the women’s section, then you know something about them.
You can set up your site so the next time someone comes to the site, it will personalise it for them based on their experience. As this viewer clicked the ‘UK’ option before, then you can have the site take them directly to the UK version of the homepage. As they were browsing women’s clothes last time, you can put the emphasis on women’s clothes here, too. It’s a small change, but it makes a big difference.
Show Recently Viewed Items
When you’re shopping online, you’re not always going to buy something the first time you look at it. You’re more likely to move on for a while, to consider the purchase that you’re going to make. However, it’s so easy to forget about an item once you’ve clicked away.
There is a way to personalise your site to stop this from happening, by displaying recently viewed items. ‘You’ll see this on many top shopping sites, such as Amazon’ says Alecia Harris, a blogger from UK Writings. ‘This shows you all the items that you’ve looked at recently, giving you the chance to go back and buy them.’
You can pair this function with a call to action, to nudge the viewer into buying. Adding a phrase like ‘Pick up where you left off will help a lot towards securing that sale. You can also recommend similar products to what the viewer looked at, too.
Create Personal Guides
In a physical store, a customer has the option of hiring a personal shopper to help them with their purchases. Online, you can program your site to do something similar. The best part is every single customer can take advantage of it, too.
A personal guide can be created with some data from the customer. You’ll see this on many fashion sites, where they ask customers to fill in a short quiz. Once they’ve done this, the site can start making recommendations for them.
On a clothing site, you can have the customer answer questions about their size, style, and budget. With that information, the site can automatically show them items that fit the bill. You can even send emails with updated products that fit these specifications, too.
Use Location Based Personalisation
Like many online stores, you’re aiming to be global. The problem is, your customers are going to be using different currencies and other criteria when perusing your site. If they’re in a different country to you, then this can get frustrating.
For example, in a shoe store, the prices will be shown in the currency of the store’s home country. Plus, the sizes will be shown in that country’s style, too. If the customer is in a different country, they’d have to go to a different tab to find currency and size converters. It’s a pain, and may well put them off buying from you.
You can avoid this though, by implementing location-based personalisation. This is where certain data changes, depending on where the site is being viewed. If the store is in the US, then you’re going to get prices in dollars and US sizing. If you view it from the UK though, the currency and the sizes change.
‘It’s a very simple change to make, but it makes all the difference’ says marketing writer Oliver Tyne, from Academized. ‘It makes shopping easier, and so puts you one step closer to a sale.’
Personalise Your Email Marketing
While some may see email marketing as very old school, it’s still highly effective. As an online business, you should be making the most of it. You can make it even more effective when you bring in personalisation.
For example, many businesses are now personalising their subject lines. You don’t want your email to get deleted before it’s even read, and this helps prevent that. Addressing the email to the customer by name makes all the difference.
Another easy way to personalise emails is to send deals on specific dates. You have your customer’s birth date, so why not send them a birthday email? If you include a money-off deal or voucher, they’re more likely to interact with the email too.
Create Personal Campaigns
Speaking of email subscribers, it’s a good way of ensuring a visitor comes back to your site after their first visit. As you’ll see on many sites, they’ll have a pop-up form asking you to sign up for emails so you can be informed of the latest deals.
That’s great for first-time customers, but repeat customers are going to be annoyed by being asked to sign up again. That’s where personalised campaigns come in. Depending on the customer on the site, you can offer a custom-made campaign for them. For example, a regular visitor can get recommendations on new products they may like, or money off a certain item for a limited time.