DATA MATTERS
PERSONALISATION IN CONVENIENCE TOM FENDER, DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, TWC
PERSONALISATION: WHY IT NOW MATTERS IN CONVENIENCE THE RACE TO LEVERAGE THE POWER OF DATA IN CONVENIENCE HAS BEEN ACCELERATED BY COVID-19 AND THE NEXT BIG BATTLEGROUND IS PERSONALISATION, ARGUES TWC
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DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR TOM FENDER.
couple of generations ago, independent retailers knew their customers by name and by what they ordered. The customer who called in at 8am every day for a Daily Mail and a packet of mints, the man who popped in at 5.15pm for his packet of cigarettes and a copy of the Mirror. Relationships were built over regular visits, knowing exactly what the customer wanted before they asked for it and offering extra items at the right time – a bottle of Lucozade, for example, when someone in the family was ill or sourcing the latest sweets that all the kids were talking about. This is old school personalisation – knowing your customer, pre-empting what they want and upselling the right products based on profile and behaviour. Today, personalisation still exists but it has grown exponentially. Today, rather than remembering a couple of hundred customers in a corner shop, Amazon remembers the 197 million customers who shop with them each month. Personalisation comes when you know enough about all your customers – online and offline – to deliver content and offers that are highly relevant
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to them at exactly the right time. Product relevance leads to much higher engagement levels, and sales conversions, than would otherwise be achieved through generic offers. 72% of consumers say they don’t interact with marketing messages that aren’t personalised or tailored to their interests. Personalisation in marketing comms is far more effective because it focuses on precise targeting (like a sniper) rather than mass marketing (scatter gun).
DEEP CUSTOMER KNOWLEDGE This can only be achieved with a deep knowledge of your customers. And this is where ‘data’ comes in. Pure Play operators like Amazon have an advantage in that all transactions are done online so they can see all of your transactions, and interactions. But they are also obsessed about learning everything they can about their customers. Every single day, Amazon changes the prices of products on its website 2.5 million times, introducing dynamic pricing techniques on a very large scale. Data drives these changes. Omni channel operators – or bricks and clicks businesses – have it tougher. A business like John
