This article is written by Leverage Lab CEO AnnMarie Wills and originally appeared on American Salon.
Customer information can be tracked with every swipe, scroll and tap, and brands have the power to connect first-party, real-time data to every customer visit in a much more personal manner. From your loyalty program to scrolls through your website, that digital footprint can be stretched to grow your beauty brand. Data lives everywhere, and you have the power to leverage that first-party data to its truest potential. Here, three tips to start growing your business and customer loyalty.
- Make sense of all your data. Customers leave valuable clues about their buying habits with every interaction and site visit. You might have a consumer spend 15 minutes comparing three hair serums and another load their entire cart just to leave the website. Whether you’re announcing a bundle offer on Instagram or updating a deal in a newsletter, that first-party data is invaluable, but it can also be overwhelming. Bring all of your data into a Customer Data Platform (CDP), Data Warehouse first, Modern Data Stack or Composable Customer Data Platform. There are a variety of architecture methods that can fit your needs. Consider this system the pipes to transfer the data and a first step in understanding the goldmine you have on customers. Using first-party data will also help you personalize the customer experience and tailor ad campaigns, which has proven to be more beneficial than leaning into typical advertising channels with built-in audiences like Facebook and Google.
- Show your customers how much you know them. More than 70 percent of consumers expect personalization to be standard, according to studies by McKinsey. Other studies have found it to be as high as 80 percent. The best way might be to map the customer journey—awareness, consideration, intention, conversion and loyalty—then build a framework and communication plan to personalize messages at every stage. This is being “customer-obsessed” in the truest sense, by fortifying that relationship using real-time data to earn customer trust. We’ve seen that if brands make a little extra effort to personalize a customer visit based on data and behavior, it translates into better customer outcomes. Think beyond marketing tactics around seasonal holidays to launch products and other “point-in-time” promotions. We all love a good Christmas hair glow-up gift guide or spring refresh recommendations. But you’re missing the opportunity to be personal and agile with the customer experience. Companies that nail personalization grow 40 percent faster than their counterparts, as seen in the report by McKinsey.
- Rethink your product recommendation tool. Most recommendation or personalization tools don’t go far enough to grow your business, nor do they take advantage of what your customer will likely buy during the golden moment point-of-sale. Some tools are static, based on top sellers or what’s trending now, and might not pertain to your customer at that exact moment. With a more robust product recommendation engine, you can factor out anomalies and one-time events. There are opportunities to go even deeper with contextual recommendations based on the weather at a customer’s precise location, geographic specials, time of day and inventory availability. If there are consecutive windy days, you can push out a notification at 4pm to let customers know about the different hairsprays you have in stock.