Now on my guest blog at Actuate-Xenos Group:
Recently on that site, I discussed the how important it is to use customer history to shape communications planning. This time, we go a step further and explore the technique of personalization, which looks at behaviors beyond just buying history and, properly done, can cement your customer relationships.
The first thing to know is that personalization cuts two ways: first, it permits us to send customers communications that greet them by name and include references to individualized local interest. Second, it allows them to customize the whole interaction to suit their needs and preferences.
Taken together, these two attributes make it clear that this was prepared with you in mind, and utilizing the techniques properly has been shown to improve engagement by as much as 30-50%.