How can you quickly and easily begin the personalization process?

Many marketers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of “big data” collected, much less knowing what to do with it. Taking the leap can feel like diving head first into a deep, dark hole. The complexity and uncertainty of it all is daunting enough to make even experienced marketers reminisce about the good old days of simple mass marketing. But we all have to move forward or get left in the dust. So here are eight fairly simple tips to get you started on your journey to more personalization.

1. Create marketing personas.
You donʼt need to be a rocket scientist to understand your customers. Study your existing customer data and create some working personas (a.k.a. profiles based on segments) that help your team better understand who your customers are and how they behave.

2. Stop sending mass emails.
Use the marketing personas that youʼve created to personalize the messaging in your emails. Send them in chunks using the language that that particular persona responds to. If you donʼt have personas, do some basic segmentation of your list based on information you have, such as location, past purchases or interests. However you break it out, youʼll probably see better results.

3. Send emails from a human,not a company.
Use the marketing personas that youʼve created to personalize the messaging in your emails. Send them in chunks using the language that that particular persona responds to. If you donʼt have personas, do some basic segmentation of your list based on information you have, such as location, past purchases or interests. However you break it out, youʼll probably see better results.

4. Create targeted landing pages geared toward different marketing personas.
If you don’t have the bandwidth to create content targeted at each of your customer personas, you should at least create targeted landing pages for your various offers. Customize the language and messaging on your landing pages to address the specific needs of that particular segment, and do this for each segment.

5. Pull audiences into the conversation.
On average, conversion rates are 105 percent higher for consumers who interact with ratings and reviews, so invite customers to leave real-time feedback. Incorporate reviews and comments throughout your Web properties.

6. Leverage social media to enhance your user profiles.
You probably already use social media in your marketing efforts, but what you may not know is that social profiles like Facebook and Twitter contain tons of user-profile data points, such as names, email addresses, interests, likes, friends, locations and more. All of this information can be passed on to third-party sites to generate tailored digital experiences. Social login facilitates this process, creating a seamless bridge between the usersʼ social media experiences and the rest of the Web.

7. Respond to prospects and customers in social media.
Don’t over-automate your marketing messages or neglect to monitor social media activity on a daily basis. Make sure a real human is tracking and responding to questions and comments in social media, and make sure they are ready to provide the best and most appropriate content and responses.

8. Use marketing automation tools to trigger campaigns based on interests.
If someone puts something in a shopping cart but doesnʼt check out, or if someone downloads a white paper focused on a specific topic, use marketing automation tools to automatically enter them into a lead-nurturing campaign that delivers content relevant to that initial interaction.

True personalization puts the customer in its lens and allows marketers to present relevant offers and messages that develop a relationship throughout the customer lifecycle. It doesnʼt happen overnight. It will take some time. So think long term. Single transactions donʼt build sustainable business, loyalty does.