Get to know me: Why personalisation + marketing = relevance, results and repeat business

A career in marketing has been an extraordinary education. It’s taught me more than I ever expected to learn about business, people, the power of technology…and the magic that can happen when they come together in the right way.

Just think about how far we’ve come. One of my Accenture MD’s, Maynard Williams - hit the nail on the head. He said, technology has become such an intrinsic part of our lives that it’s like a language. And we’re fluent in it. We don’t have to translate it in our minds before putting it to work. Using it is as natural as speech. This creates enormous opportunities in so many areas. For me - marketing is one of them.

That fluency is just as true in a marketing context. Today, every business is a digital business. And we’re moving into new marketing territory – it’s the ‘post-digital era’ – and we need to do something very special with technology to stand out, achieve relevance and win loyalty.

The priorities today? Going beyond delivering personalised products to providing individualised experiences. Marketing, communicating and delivering to a ‘market of one’. Matching experiences to each customer’s needs, at every stage of their life journey. And, of course, using data and technology, not for its own sake, but to get to know every customer and touch them in a meaningful way.

We’ve all encountered the power of personalisation first-hand. For me, a couple of experiences stand out. They’re both very different. But they share a common theme: the power of personalisation.

The first experience? Rushing home from work in a black cab, I left my phone on the back seat. I went online to report the loss… ploughed through all the forms I needed to complete, and resigned myself to never seeing my phone again.

I was wrong. On my way out the next morning, the porter in our apartment block handed me my phone with a note saying ‘Good luck with the play’. On the way home the previous evening, I’d told the driver it was my children’s school play the following day. He’d remembered where he’d dropped me off and taken the trouble to drive back and return it. 

At a time when most people in London were switching from black cabs to Ubers, it really made me stop and think. With some thought, intuition and personalisation (as well as human kindness), that driver took my whole passenger experience to a different level. I’ve been a loyal black cab user ever since.

The second experience is all about loyalty too. Over 15 years ago, I put together one of my favourite marketing campaigns. Technology was a lot less mature then, of course. But the lessons hold true today.

Having recently joined a front-facing sales role, I needed to build a network, fast. And I found a way to put that to work. Aware that we were getting most of our referrals through the top-10 accountancy firms, I drew up a list of all their partners and sent them a box of personalised chocolates, that I hand-delivered. The result? I hit my target and built a loyal new network in the process.

I believe that all of us who work in marketing can learn from these two examples. Unlike 15 years ago, thanks to digital we’ve now got the potential to really get to know our customers and interact with them as individuals. And we need to use it. Whatever the customer, whether they’re B2B or B2C, they all want the same thing: seamless, intuitive service that’s on target every time.

That means using data wisely and well to provide great, personalised experiences across the whole customer journey, from end to end. But there’s more to it than that. We need to exercise common-sense, getting the right balance between data and creativity. Digital technology brings some extraordinary benefits to the marketing mix. But it takes humans + machines to unleash its full potential.

In other words, don’t rely on data alone. It’s not just about customer surveys, campaign responses and so on. We have to take in the whole picture. And once we’ve got that in focus, we’re well on the way to providing the kind of holistic, immersive experiences that make all the difference.

From a marketing perspective, the more you can understand across the entire customer journey, the better you’ll perform. Today, consumers’ technology identities leave footprints behind. As a living foundation of knowledge, they create incredibly exciting opportunities for us to become each individual customer’s trusted partner. And that’s where we need to be to get the best result.

It’s a phenomenon we explore in this year’s Accenture Technology Vision. Particularly in the ‘Get to know me’ trend. This includes some great examples of companies that have learned how to harness the data from multiple unique technology identities – and use these insights to achieve a vibrant, living and individualised view of every consumer.

IKEA’s a great example of a company that’s getting this right. Their augmented reality app lets customers browse their catalogue and put 3D renderings of furniture directly into their own physical environments. It revolutionises the whole shopping experience. Above all, it brings personalisation to life.

If your organisation is at the start of this whole journey, don’t expect to get everything right first time. It takes time to build up the body of data you need. And it takes time to learn how to use it to maximum effect. But when you get it right, and you will, amazing things will start to happen.

Thanks for reading.