Not long ago I worked with a stomach-driven organization. A stomach-driven marketing organization starts the day with a guess. Red! Make all the pages red, customers will buy! The team scrambles, the pages are red. No buying? It’s the weather. Lots of buying? It’s the red. Being stomach-driven worked when your competitors were also stomach-driven.Continue reading “The Science of Personalization: Guess, but Test”
Category Archives: Best Practices
Seeing Your Personalization Vision
An important early step in developing your personalization strategy is articulating, communicating, and committing to a vision. I’m not talking about a mission-statement kind of vision, or a string of wonderful words that make everyone feel good. I’m talking about having a clear idea of what the personalized experience will be like for your customers,Continue reading “Seeing Your Personalization Vision”
4 Steps to Personalization Success
Personalization is gardening. It’s energizing to image the garden in all its perfection. But after you plant it, you have to take care of it. Probably nearly every day. You’re not done until you decide you don’t want it any more. Companies unsuccessful with personalization think buying technology is enough. Or adding product recommendations toContinue reading “4 Steps to Personalization Success”
Preparing for Do Not Track: Personalization and Privacy in 2013
Do Not Track legislation and similar initiatives are at odds with the techniques used to personalize the customer experience. On the one hand, advocates of consumer privacy demand that people control the information that is collected about them, and how it is used. On the other, the web sites and advertising networks want to adjustContinue reading “Preparing for Do Not Track: Personalization and Privacy in 2013”
2013 Prediction: Personalization Leaders Find the Way
Recommendations went mainstream in 2012. Personalization is still in the hands of early adopters. In 2013, the early adopters will figure out personalization, so that in 2014 the personalized customer experience can go mainstream. Vendors in the recommendations space sell personalization, but in 2012, they were delivering recommendations. Their technology supported personalization, but their clients’Continue reading “2013 Prediction: Personalization Leaders Find the Way”
How to Evaluate Recommendation Solutions
When I undertake to evaluate a technology, I start with customer requirements. I formalize and publish these requirements freely to all in what I call an evaluation framework. This helps me compare the capabilities of multiple solutions, objectively and consistently. When I evaluate a vendor solution, I start by identifying the solution’s capabilities against eachContinue reading “How to Evaluate Recommendation Solutions”
RETAIL BEST PRACTICE: ASSIGN GOALS TO PAGES
AGILITY TRICK #1: PERSONALIZATION
When companies adapt their customer experience to best serve the individual customer, using recommendation systems, behavioral targeting or other methods, this is what I call personalization. Face to face with the customer, this may take the form of recognizing the person, acknowledging the type and duration of the relationship, bypassing steps in the business pro-cess,Continue reading “AGILITY TRICK #1: PERSONALIZATION”
RETAIL BEST PRACTICE: ALIGN CUSTOMER AND BUSINESS GOALS
For retailers, the chief business goals for your web sites are likely revenue, margin, and acquiring and retaining customers. Customers’ goals vary from visit to visit. The most common goals are as follows: • Research what’s on offer to satisfy my need • Compare and consider alternatives • Buy • Realize the benefits of theContinue reading “RETAIL BEST PRACTICE: ALIGN CUSTOMER AND BUSINESS GOALS”
Retail Best Practices for Targeted Merchandising and Personalization
Targeted Merchandising Benefits Merchandising is the practice of maximizing sales by leveraging product design, packaging, pricing, display, and most importantly, selection. Targeted merchandising selects content (including products and offers) for consumers based on traits such as consumer context or behavior, or based on rules set by merchandisers. Targeted merchandising improves the customer experience and merchantContinue reading “Retail Best Practices for Targeted Merchandising and Personalization”
On Target 