How Businesses in Africa can Unlock the Power of Personalization
When you think about your most exciting brand experience, what comes to mind? A brand that has left a lasting impression will matter first in today’s marketing landscape. Personalization is a basic aspect of brand development, and no business in the world can thrive without it in today’s highly competitive space.
To raise the personalization bar, Jumia; a leading E-commerce business with a presence in over 20 African countries, provides dynamic, user-specific content to its customers. How they achieve this is interesting; the business simply modifies the product display shown to users on the homepage using purchase history, browser history, user preferences, on-site behavior, and personal data. In simple terms, Jumia automatically changes the product content on the homepage that is shown to each user, displaying products similar to what the user has either purchased recently from the site, searched for, or products purchased by other users (from the same geographical location or age as the current user).
For instance, Salami feels he’s gaining more weight and decided to shop for fitness outfits on the Jumia platform. Returning to the site one month later for more workout wear, Salami is amazed by the number of ads for fitness wear offered at discount, especially those similar to what he checked out during his last purchase and products kept in his cart. The result was a seamless and timely shopping experience for him, leading to additional sales and improved customer retention for Jumia. Now imagine a business with over 5 million customers enjoying this experience. This is what personalized customer experience does – improving positive user experience by enabling tailored messaging, offers, and products to every customer.
Personalization means using data and analytics to meet the individual needs of a consumer. Collecting, analyzing, and effectively using information about consumer demography, interests, and behaviors will help you create campaigns, content, and experiences that resonate with your target audience. From engaging customers using their first name to developing or offering products that meet their likes and interests, personalization has become the new brand differentiator defining businesses.
Why Personalization Matters
Personalisation is key and customers expect it at every touchpoint. Having the right toolsets and services to make effective use of data, gives businesses the opportunities to deliver personalized offers to customers. “Over 76% of consumers said that receiving personalized communications was a key factor in prompting their consideration of a brand, and 78% said such content made them more likely to repurchase,” as detailed by McKinsey. Personalization is essential to driving repeat engagement and loyalty; the more skillful a company becomes in applying data to grow customer knowledge and intimacy, the greater the returns.
Companies like Terragon, through technology solutions leading the charge in personalization have helped brands achieve better customer outcomes. Terragon’s solutions enable data-powered messaging which has helped thousands of brands improve customer experience through personalized engagements. Get started.
How Can More Businesses in Africa Adopt Personalization?
The ads you see on social media, your recommended videos on YouTube, and the emails you receive are all personalized contents tailored to your interest, and PWC Consumer Experience Series tells just how much customers care about personalization: “More than 80% of people are ready to pay more just to get a better customer experience”. Adopting a good personalization strategy is not only a smart move for your business but is important to keep up with your competition. Here’s what you can do to deliver exceptional personalized engagement for your business.
Remember the global “Share a Coke ” campaign in 2013/2014 when popular names were printed on Coca‑Cola labels and customers were also able to personalize their own bottles of Coca‑Cola at various Share a Coke tours? The result was the sale of over 250 million customized bottles and cans in Australia – a nation of just under 23 million people and in South Africa, OLC recorded a standard-smashing turnover of over 250 000 personalized cans printed at a rate of around 6 cans per minute, exceeding the international vending standards of 3 cans per minute.
Personalized customer interaction done via email, SMS, Whatsapp or even online chat bot is a good way to engage with your customers. With TerragonPrime, you can take personalization to the next level by including your customers name in every message you send.
Recommend Relevant Products Using Data:
You can use recent purchase history data to identify additional products your customers may be interested in purchasing, like Jumia does, and suggest it to them. If you have a website or mobile app for your business, you can personalize pop-ups or mobile push notifications for apps to provide personal product recommendations to customers and engage with them regularly.
Offer Rewards
A great way to excite your customers is to reward them for loyalty. However, you need data to achieve this. You can monitor customer purchase habits and use their histories to make decisions. By offering rewards such as airtime, mobile data and vouchers using Terragon Rewards solution, to loyal customers they feel appreciated and may likely return. Combine this effort with a personalized “thank you” message, using TerragonPrime, and you’ll have a satisfied, loyal customer that feels valued.
…And consumers reward businesses that get it right
Today, consumers are drifting toward brands that they feel listen to them, understand them, and pay attention to their specific wants and needs. Accenture Survey 2018 says that “91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations”, while “48% of consumers have left a company’s website and made a purchase elsewhere. The only reason: the experience was poorly curated.” Delivering personalized engagement will better help you understand your customers and receive great feedback.
Businesses using Terragon scale their customer engagement efforts through effective and personalized SMS and Whatsapp messaging. Get started for free
