Blog Post
Digital Marketing Blog
3 Reasons To Have Website Personalization
- By James QUINN
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- 21 Dec, 2015
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Making the case for personalization
If you go to almost any website these days, you’ll see what looks like a cookie cutter design. It’s the ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL strategy used by many web designers. Few (major) companies have delivered a customized experience. You’ll see this with Amazon and eBay to name just two. That does not mean that your small business website can’t have the same dynamic content.
Breeze Digital Media websites offers incredibly useful tools that can now change what content is being displayed and when to display it to better match the visitors unique needs. This helpful tool with maximize conversion from existing traffic and engage your customers.
Here are three ways website personalization can improve the engagement of your site and immediately increase the conversion rate.
Breeze Digital Media websites offers incredibly useful tools that can now change what content is being displayed and when to display it to better match the visitors unique needs. This helpful tool with maximize conversion from existing traffic and engage your customers.
Here are three ways website personalization can improve the engagement of your site and immediately increase the conversion rate.
1. Timing
The phrase “timing is everything” rings very true with website personalization. If you’re going to change an aspect in your website at a predetermined trigger point, you need to make sure the change is relevant to the viewer.
Basically, you’re creating a personalized call to action (CTA for future reference). To get a better idea of what this looks like in real time, consider this example situation:
Jane is looking for a new skateboard for her son, so she starts a google search on her desktop computer and it brings her to awesomeskateboards.com. Jane has never been to that website before, but she knows what she wants to buy.
Because John (owner of Awesome Skateboards) uses website personalization, he has a trigger setup that recognizes when a customer like Jane visits his website for the first time. After a few seconds on the site, a coupon appears in front of Jane: “New Customers Get 10% Off Their First Purchase.” Jane's quick to claim the coupon, and she instantly gets it emailed to her phone to reference if she decides to visit the store.
But Jane isn’t an impulse buyer. She does her due diligence and checks out the websites of some other local skateboard shops around town. She finds that they all have a pretty similar selection of children’s skateboards, but only one offers a 10 percent discount. She’s made her decision, so she and her son head out to Awesome Skateboards
A personalized event should be a shortcut that minimizes the number of clicks or taps it takes to go from visitor to customer. A first-time visitor, like Jane, would be lured in by a coupon, but a skateboard enthusiast who visits John's website a few times a week doesn’t need a coupon popping up every time they land on the site. For them, a ‘Follow Us on Facebook’ button would be a better way to keep them regularly updated with different promotions and events.
Basically, you’re creating a personalized call to action (CTA for future reference). To get a better idea of what this looks like in real time, consider this example situation:
Jane is looking for a new skateboard for her son, so she starts a google search on her desktop computer and it brings her to awesomeskateboards.com. Jane has never been to that website before, but she knows what she wants to buy.
Because John (owner of Awesome Skateboards) uses website personalization, he has a trigger setup that recognizes when a customer like Jane visits his website for the first time. After a few seconds on the site, a coupon appears in front of Jane: “New Customers Get 10% Off Their First Purchase.” Jane's quick to claim the coupon, and she instantly gets it emailed to her phone to reference if she decides to visit the store.
But Jane isn’t an impulse buyer. She does her due diligence and checks out the websites of some other local skateboard shops around town. She finds that they all have a pretty similar selection of children’s skateboards, but only one offers a 10 percent discount. She’s made her decision, so she and her son head out to Awesome Skateboards
A personalized event should be a shortcut that minimizes the number of clicks or taps it takes to go from visitor to customer. A first-time visitor, like Jane, would be lured in by a coupon, but a skateboard enthusiast who visits John's website a few times a week doesn’t need a coupon popping up every time they land on the site. For them, a ‘Follow Us on Facebook’ button would be a better way to keep them regularly updated with different promotions and events.
2. Location
You could have the most beautiful website the world has ever seen, but if you run a brick-and-mortar business, it doesn’t matter unless you’re getting customers through your front door.
John knows that she needs to get more customers, so she uses website personalization to make sure the journey to her storefront is fast and smooth.
Jane just left her house to go buy her daughter a skateboard from Awesome Skateboard Shop, but she forgot to write down the address before she left. She pulls out her phone and goes back to awesomeskateboards.com to find the address, and right away she’s greeted by a “Maps” button. She clicks it and Google Maps immediately starts directing her to Awesome Skateboards.
Awesome Skateboard Shop has locations in Lincoln, Providence and Warwick, but his website’s personalization trigger recognizes that Jane lives in Lincoln, so it won’t send her on a ‘journey' to Warwick. Instead it will direct her to the outlet in her hometown.
It’s also worth noting the type of device that Jane is using. When she visited John's website on her laptop, it wouldn’t really be useful to get immediate step-by-step directions. A trigger in John's website can recognize the device being used, and display the most relevant content. Most people turn to mobile devices for navigation help, so it makes sense to prioritize navigation content on mobile devices over laptop and desktop devices.
John knows that she needs to get more customers, so she uses website personalization to make sure the journey to her storefront is fast and smooth.
Jane just left her house to go buy her daughter a skateboard from Awesome Skateboard Shop, but she forgot to write down the address before she left. She pulls out her phone and goes back to awesomeskateboards.com to find the address, and right away she’s greeted by a “Maps” button. She clicks it and Google Maps immediately starts directing her to Awesome Skateboards.
Awesome Skateboard Shop has locations in Lincoln, Providence and Warwick, but his website’s personalization trigger recognizes that Jane lives in Lincoln, so it won’t send her on a ‘journey' to Warwick. Instead it will direct her to the outlet in her hometown.
It’s also worth noting the type of device that Jane is using. When she visited John's website on her laptop, it wouldn’t really be useful to get immediate step-by-step directions. A trigger in John's website can recognize the device being used, and display the most relevant content. Most people turn to mobile devices for navigation help, so it makes sense to prioritize navigation content on mobile devices over laptop and desktop devices.
3. Engagement
“Engagement” is one of the web design community’s favorite buzzwords. Everyone talks about how important it is to engage your customers and get them interacting with your website, and the concept is easy enough to grasp at surface level. But few websites are truly engaging.
John had some similar issues with her website, but he quickly found that website personalization was able to greatly increase customer engagement with her business.
It’s now August, and Jane's son is about to head back to school after spending a summer skateboarding around his neighborhood on one of John’s skateboards. He’s now old enough to skateboard to and from school, so Jane wants to get his son’s skateboard tuned up and ready for the school year. She opens up her laptop again and goes back to awesomeskateboards.com to see if they offer tune-ups.
Sure enough, there’s a whole page dedicated to tune-ups on the website. There’s plenty of information about different replacement parts, cleaning products, and DIY repair guides, but she wants to make sure that a professional takes a look to ensure her son's safety.
John has set up a trigger in his website that recognizes that Jane has visited the website a few times, and this prompts a notification for Jane: “Back to School Special: Free Tune-Ups For Previous Customers!”
Jane adds the special to her agenda, further inspired to return to John’s Awesome Skateboard Shop for her future skateboard related needs.
John had some similar issues with her website, but he quickly found that website personalization was able to greatly increase customer engagement with her business.
It’s now August, and Jane's son is about to head back to school after spending a summer skateboarding around his neighborhood on one of John’s skateboards. He’s now old enough to skateboard to and from school, so Jane wants to get his son’s skateboard tuned up and ready for the school year. She opens up her laptop again and goes back to awesomeskateboards.com to see if they offer tune-ups.
Sure enough, there’s a whole page dedicated to tune-ups on the website. There’s plenty of information about different replacement parts, cleaning products, and DIY repair guides, but she wants to make sure that a professional takes a look to ensure her son's safety.
John has set up a trigger in his website that recognizes that Jane has visited the website a few times, and this prompts a notification for Jane: “Back to School Special: Free Tune-Ups For Previous Customers!”
Jane adds the special to her agenda, further inspired to return to John’s Awesome Skateboard Shop for her future skateboard related needs.
In closing
John and Jane are fictional, but your customers aren’t. They are real people who face the same type of challenges Jane did, and website personalization can solve a lot of those challenges. This article only has a few examples of ways that website personalization can help your business, but it’s still a very new and underutilized technology. If you want to have the upper hand against your competitors and instantly boost your conversion, then try out website personalization
today.
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