Using Web Personalisation To Increase Sales
To attract new and to secure returning customers in today’s highly competitive market, having engaging online content is essential
Personalisation is a must if you want to effectively target your audience and mould your website to their needs. The best chances of success will come from websites that are engaging and dynamic, both of which play a part in the company’s overall online presence.
To successfully give visitors the information they’re looking for fast by reducing their time spent searching you need to use the priceless information you gather about your customers, both new and returning, to tailor content, information and offers. The travel industry in particular is a perfect example of how to use data to improve overall customer service, as it is such a competitive market, if companies don't deliver a perfect customer experience, they risk losing out to companies that are.
Monitoring users and using the data gained is an invaluable tool for marketers, because the information gained can be used to personalise the website for each customer in turn, increasing sales. When a site adapts to the visitor you’re securing bringing your segmentation strategy online, this will mean that you can then communicate to each target audience in a distinct way. Award winning travel company, Co-operative Travel is a great example of a company utilising personalisation techniques to deliver a superior customer experience.
In 2011, since the joint venture switchover, Co-operative Travel has seen a 95% increase in visitors and 217% increase in revenue. The personalisation features they use on their website enable customers to effortlessly glide through to booking pages, providing an easy to use and integrated site, increasing conversion rates, and reducing the number of customers dropping off after an initial search. For personalisation to be most effective, you need to think context.
One example of putting their experience into a context that’s familiar with them is to use geography or location. You can use a visitor’s IP address to determine their location and then gear content on the site like offers and locations that are relevant to their environment.
A second step for contextualising the visitor experience is to use external factors, such as the most popular day and time when people search for holiday, new job or home, or spend the most money if you have an online store, and set up sales and promotions around those times. It is all about serving the appropriate content in the right context to help your visitor.
The online landscape is constantly changing, so you must keep in mind what the future holds for online marketing, and remember that consumers will be the driving force for change.
