The Building Blocks of Personalization for Big Brands [Enterprise Ready]
Think for a moment about Legos — the toy building
bricks that for generations have been practically
synonymous with childhood.
As kids, many
of us built Legos with our siblings, parents and
friends. Those children became adults and now
purchase Lego products for new generations.
They buy so many Legos that the brand is number
two in the global toy market (behind Mattel, followed
by Hasbro). Sure, Lego has nostalgia on
its side, but it is not a stretch to credit the brand’s
popularity in the 21st century to its investment in
the digital experience. Lego is separating itself
from the pack with a similar commitment to personalization
— and you can too.
Personalization’s Holy Grail
Unless someone knows a person really well, it’s nearly impossible to determine tone online. It is possible, however, to infer certain things about the person behind a digital interaction, because in personal relationships, there are back stories. Say a man posts an image of his son playing with Legos on Facebook with the caption, “Great, rainy day.” Someone who doesn’t know him may think he’s upset that he has to stay inside on a Saturday night. This man’s sister, however, knows he loved playing Legos on rainy days as a child, was excited to purchase his son a set of Star Wars-themed Legos and is using his Blackberry that desperately needs an upgrade. Today’s consumers want brands to know that too. They need to be his sister. Well, maybe not exactly, but pretty close.
SUBSCRIBE FREE to Website Magazine - 12 Issues
Now, how does a brand deliver an experience to “their brother” that speaks to him directly? Fortunately, if an enterprise can imagine it, there’s a technology that supports it.
Please Remember Me
Nate Barad is the director of product strategy for Sitecore. After speaking with him, we know that aside from his role at Sitecore, Barad is a dad to two young boys. Without speaking directly to him, Lego can assume that too. His online order history with Lego, and other companies, is full of duplicate purchases. To avoid meltdowns, anytime he buys a toy, a tablet — you name it — he buys an extra one so that each of his sons has his own.
article continues below...
Can You Pass the Enterprise Mobile Test?
Discover three things to know before going mobile.
Using Sitecore, Lego uses Barad’s order history
and what he calls “digital body language” to personalize his Web experience. For example, Lego
pushes down items that don’t have two in stock
— minimizing any frustration Barad may have
after investing time in products he ultimately
won’t buy. Lego also promotes “buy one, get one
free” (BOGO) offers or “buy two get free shipping”
promotions to Barad, which they wouldn’t
necessarily serve to someone without his buying
history. Lego and other brands can build a robust
profile of Barad and his fellow shoppers (including
how and when he shops, what he buys, what
promotions he interacts with, what age group he
buys for and more) to customize content and his
user experience.
Barad expects brands to have this kind of intimate
knowledge of him and to earn his business
by leveraging the information they have about
him to build a custom experience. In fact, Accenture
Interactive reports that 75 percent of U.S.
consumers like when brands personalize messaging
and offers so they are more relevant, while etailing
group states that 51 percent of consumers
are willing to share data if it results in receiving a
better shopping experience. Overall, 44 percent
of consumers appreciate retailers more when they
remember their buying and browsing behavior
across all channels (source: e-tailing group).
So, what are you waiting for? If you’re like many
brands, you are stuck behind a wall of misconceptions,
cost concerns and IT barriers.
Party of One
Before a brand can even begin to personalize a
shopper’s experience, they have to understand
what personalization is and what it isn’t. According
to Baynote VP of Marketing and Development
Dan Darnell one of the biggest misconceptions
that brands have about personalization is that
they are going to use a visitor’s profile information
to personalize the experience and that this
is the only option. In fact, for 80-90 percent of
commerce sites visitors are anonymous.
“To believe I am going to know your gender,
household income, etc. and then deliver relevant
content, sounds like the right thing to do if you
have that info, but for the majority of people coming
to commerce sites, you need other strategies
to personalize,” said Darnell.
Baynote educates brands that personalization is
delivering relevant content based on what a marketer
does know about a visitor, such as when a
person came to a site using a particular search
term (if they’re not receiving Google organic
traffic of course) and then went to the sweaters
section, but the
marketer knows nothing
else. Or, like our
earlier example, this
shopper buys two of
everything in “x” age
group. To speak on a
1:1 basis with customers,
profiles need to be
built and then leveraged
with automation.
Getting started with these technologies can take
as little development time as putting a tag in the
footer of a website, much like an analytic solution.
Conversely, to deploy more broadly, it can
require server-to-server integration, which is, of
course, the recommendation of many experts.
“The breadth of what you can do with this technology
is eye opening for a lot of our prospects
and clients,” said Darnell. “The fact of the matter
is it’s early days for a lot of them, some of
them are playing catch-up and those moving to
the next step understand deploying personalization
throughout a website will continue to generate
improved revenue
and engagement.”
article continues below...
The Amazon Effect
Amazon knows product recommendations are nothing without personalization. See what opportunities exist.
Costs for solutions like Baynote can range from a few thousand dollars a month to tens of thousands depending on brand and use cases, but Darnell says the return on investment is well worth it. He continues that personalization is a critical, necessary tactic within the arsenal of the modern Web experience.
Brands need to break down personalization barriers and build their businesses like a child playing with Legos, because if they can imagine it, the technology is absolutely available to support it.
About the Author: Amberly Dressler is the Managing Editor of Website Magazine


Leave Your Comment
Login to CommentBecome a Member
Not already a part of our community?
Sign UpSign up to participate in the discussion. It's free and quick.