Unveil newer direct selling opportunities with hyper-personalization

I was driving with my dad to his hometown a few months ago and stopped by a roadside shack for a quick coffee. Out of busyness, I forgot to request a sugar-free coffee for my dad who was diabetic. But surprisingly, the coffee came without sugar. Turned out that it was my dad’s usual stopover during his drive and the people at the place knew my dad’s preferences.

When you are a frequent customer at a restaurant or a cafe, the chances of a steward or an attendant at the place identifying you are high. When they go the extra mile to get you something that you wanted last time, but wasn’t available, or they make a particular dish to your liking because they know your preferences by now, there is a sense of gratitude, bonding, and recognition that is built. This is exactly what hyper-personalization is meant by.

From street shopping to online shopping, retail selling has gone through a tremendous transition over the years. Especially with the pandemic’s entry, when digital marketing took over every other conventional marketing technique, there were innovations taking place every now and then. Personalization in marketing thus took new forms to meet customer interests and needs.

Hyper-personalization? Come again?

To start with, I would say, hyper-personalization is one of the most advanced, sophisticated, and innovative ways through which brands can devise befitting marketing techniques for each of their customers. In order to do this, cutting-edge technologies like data analytics, artificial intelligence, and automation are put to use to deeply understand customer behavior, patterns, and interests and analyze even their thought processes to deliver the most curated product, service, and experience to your valued customers. Apart from leaving your customers supremely satisfied, this would help you generate new and quality leads who could scale up your business manifolds.

Brands could build new customer relationships, deepen existing relationships and improve overall customer experience through hyper-personalization. Besides these, the concept can also help brands to keep their customers engaged with customer-specific communication through every channel as and when required. Hyper-personalization could sound synonymous with direct selling business since the strategy is also referred to as one-to-one marketing or in-person marketing, the key foundation of direct marketing. And hence, the intention to hyper-personalize your business could not only impact your revenue, but also empower your brand’s advocacy and improve marketing effectiveness.

Hyper-personalization in direct selling

With the changing expectations of consumers, increasing competition in the market, and the easy and increasing availability of data, hyper-personalization can benefit direct selling businesses in more ways than one. With the advent of digitization and advanced data technologies, organizations can track down the preferences of customers and their interests. Sifting through vast volumes of data is made easier with AI, which can help brands tailor hyper-personalized experiences to entice new customers, retain existing ones and generate leads for their business. Data analytics can take hyper-personalization to extreme levels to turn a customer’s journey with the brand into an experience.

Customer engagement is a herculean task with which brands often fail. An individual’s previous shopping history itself could deliver a lot of data on their likes and dislikes, but how to rightly use them beneficial to the brand is where your strategy for hyper-personalization begins. Apart from the history, the customer’s interaction with the brand, their goals, and what they expect from the brand, and every such nitty-gritty that can be derived with the help of real-time data. And this data is an integral part of hyper-personalization, it’s high time direct selling companies consider integrating data analytics into their system for effective business management.

Build your business far and wide

Recent research by Deloitte explains how personalization is widely preferred by all categories of customers. It even states how 60% of the millennials said that they wouldn’t mind sharing their personal information to receive promotions and offers based on their personal interests. 97% of marketers agree with the significant efforts they have put in to personalize their marketing and how it has taken their graphs higher. According to McKinsey & Company, as much as 76% of consumers get disappointed if brands don’t prioritize personalization.

If you ask me why hyper-personalization, I have proven answers to it. Hyper-personalization shortens sales cycles–one major advantage that can save any ship because it can clear routes and bypass pain points to grab what a customer is looking for. This can reduce a customer’s stress level because having to make a choice from ten options is always easier than from a hundred options. Handpicking your best products and services and delivering them at their will is definitely a way to every customer’s heart, which ideally enhances a brand’s loyalty and customer retention rates.

Now let me ask you, why not hyper-personalization??

While we are at it, let us also take a look at the key points to be wary of while adopting the strategy;

• Anonymous data could do more bad than good. And hence, interpreting the data with a bit of customer interaction could help you gain a deep understanding of their needs and wants which will help you design a foolproof plan of action.
• The technological advancements through which a customer’s interests, behaviors, and traits are analyzed could be a little intimidating for customers making them feel exposed to fraudulence and other cyber issues. Permission-based hyper-personalization could instill a secure feeling in customers, which protects their privacy and shared data.

Building robust and meaningful connections with customers is what marketing is meant to be. However, with the rising demands for personalization and increased market competition, the best way to design a growth strategy is to leverage every possibility of data analytics in direct selling that is now taking over the industry by storm.

Hyper-personalization is, without a doubt going to rule the retail selling and marketing sector, tailoring successful strategies incorporating advanced analytics could help brands build stronger business roots that can branch out robust customer relationships and flower into a successful business.