Personalizing Your Small Business Marketing in Kenya.

Every entrepreneur knows marketing is crucial for any business. Without marketing, you reduce your business’ potential and you might not get as many sales to your door as with marketing.

Marketing is critical and needs a lot of strategizing and investment in terms of time and money. How you do your marketing and the approach you take determines the results you get. That means the wrong marketing approach will not help grow your business to what you want it to.

One strategy to making your marketing effective is personalizing it. A Hubspot report shows that almost 74% of online customers get frustrated by websites with content they don’t find interesting or content that does not meet their interests.

From the Digital Marketing Institute, with personalized marketing, your promotional message is tailored to customers by identifying unique customer traits. Personalizing helps you reach your customers as individuals instead of reaching them as a crowd or a mass audience. This way, you boost customer experience and even attract more customers to your business and your products or services.

In the past, most businesses focused on creating experiences for group audiences but with the digital space, you can only cut through with personalized marketing. Generally, personalized marketing focuses on individual customers and creating specific interests for them as individuals.

You can personalize your website copy, your emails, your social media posts, and any other content you use with an aim of reaching your customer.

Simple Ways to personalize you’re marketing as a Small Business.

Most experts speak of marketing personalization highly when it comes to big businesses that have a professional marketing team and whose websites are core to their operations.

As a small business, you might wonder how you can easily and effectively personalize your marketing without a professional marketing team.

You don’t need to have a big budget, an experienced marketing team, or even a website to benefit from personalized marketing. You can focus on your social media, your email, and your customer experience in your store and you don’t need a big team to do this. Your team of two or one is enough for you.

1.Generate Customer Personas.

This should be your first step to personalizing your marketing and it will need some research and time.

Social media has all types of people in it and you need to know who you are marketing to.

Don’t see your customers as this vague group of people who share the same interests or of the same age. Instead, see them as individuals who are specific and with specific needs, interests, and own personalities.

With social media and email, customer personas help you deliver marketing experiences that are more personalized and not vague.

According to Lilach Bullock on SocialMedia Examiner, knowing your audience is more about the specifics. Knowing details about the specific people who interact with your brand helps you segment your customers and know their needs.

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have made it easy for businesses to get specific information about the people who interact with their brands. When you know where and how to look for this information you will find so much about your customers.

• Their ages.
• Where they are from.
• Where they spend their time online.
• The topics that interest them.
• The influencers they follow and interact with,
• The devices they use to sign in, etc.

When you know your specific customers and their needs, you will be able to create personalized content for them. Whether on social media or emails.

According to Bullock create multiple customer personas for the different customers you are targeting. She adds that you should get into as much detail as possible.

Make as much use of your built-in social media analytics on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Know the personas provided by the analytics, your customers’ demographics, their lifestyle based on interests, and know their consumer behavior. 

2.Create Persona Driven Content.

Once you have your multiple customer personas, create content for each persona.

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, creating persona-driven content is key in the personalization process for your small business. DMI says personas are the closest thing you have to reach your customers as specific individuals. One shoe fits all content clearly cannot fit all.

When you create content that is in line with your specific persona, you will be able to tailor your marketing message. Whatever content you are creating, let your customer personas’ needs and interests guide you.

With tailored content, you will give your customers what they need – they will watch what they are dying to watch, and read what they are dying to read. This way, you have a very high chance of reaching the right audience. 

3.Segment your Email List.

Digital Marketing Institute sees Email as one of the easiest ways to add personalization to your marketing.

DMI advises segmenting your email list to help you send more personalized messages to your customers. Remember your customer personas as you write and send out marketing emails.

For example, if you are run a small boutique business, don’t send offers on female products to male customers. Male customers are less likely to be interested in female product offers.

So, with each persona, send a message that is of interest to them.

4.Use your Customer’s Names.

This is the secret to get your customer’s attention in their crowded inboxes – using their names. Customers are more likely to pay attention to an email with their name in the subject line. Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.

As a small business, your interactions with your customers are specified in a way that makes it easy for you to know your customers’ names. When customers come to your store, make sure you get their names. As you deliver products to them, or as you offer your services, get to know their names. 

Using their names makes them feel like you are directly speaking to them. Let your emails look like this: “Hey James! We’ve missed you!” instead of “Dear Esteemed Customer.”

Using your customer’s names makes them feel connected to your brand and valued by your brand. They will be more receptive to your message.

5.Send Emails from a human and not a brand.

Just like using your customer’s names, adopt sending customers emails from a human and not a brand.

Let your emails reflect an actual person’s name from your team instead of your business’s name. Make it like this: James Arthur, Marketing Team instead of The Lead Media.

Let your emails come about as authentic as possible and tailor your email templates with each customer.  

6.Respond to Customers Personally on Social Media.

Most small business do their marketing on social media and interact with most of their customers on this space.

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, most businesses automate their social media responses. A customer writes a DM (direct message) on Instagram or Facebook and they get automated messages that don’t really address their pain points. If you do this, the customer will lose interest and go somewhere else.

You need to be there for your customers when they need you. Above all, give them the answers and information that meets their personal needs.

Put some extra effort to daily monitor your social media activity and give each customer what he/she needs.

7.Show the people behind your Business.

There is nothing as personal as people. Bringing the human touch to your marketing will change your marketing.

Nysha King from Forbes Communications Council says revealing the people in their organization has revolved Forbes’ corporate social media strategy.

Consider revealing your team more on social media and let customers see your team more. Profile them showing what they do through videos, photos, etc.

Such personalized glimpses into the people behind what they consume send a strong message and customers connect more with such.

8.Use friendship follow-up tactics.

Don’t be the business that follows one sale with another sale pitch. Eventually, this pushes customers away and increases customer churn reducing sales in return.

Jeff Grover from Forbes Communications Council advises on adopting doing customer follow-ups with things that add more value for free. Be the business that sends their past customer’s gift vouchers or gives them discounts on future purchases.

Using friendship follow-up tactics will help you boost customer loyalty and gives the customer a sense of belonging. Ultimately, this increases customer retention.

9.Reward your Loyal Customers.

Almost every business has customers who buy more than others and are more ‘loyal’ than others.

Syed Balkhi a writer at Business.Com says these customers are way more important than the customers you don’t have. Meaning, you have to make sure you impress them and make them feel important and special.

Send your special customers targeted promotions and make sure you offer them special discounts. These tactics makes them feel special, valued, and encourages them to keep buying from you.  

Also, make your existing customers happy through personalized messages and things like offers.

10.Give a Personalized Customer Experience In your store.

Your store is a good place to add some personal touch and make your customers feel valued as specific individuals.

Offer customers a warm welcome when they come to your store so they feel valued and welcomed. Ask them what they need in order to meet their present needs and give them a personalized customer experience.

Make their buying journey a dialogue and listen to them, answer all their questions in a warm and patient way. Additionally, anticipate your customers’ future needs and know what add-ons they might need before they even know they need them.

This makes them know you know their needs.

Final Thoughts…

Using the above simple tactics will help you turn your small business’s marketing around and see constant results.

Therefore, work towards making your customers feel seen, heard, and thought of not as a mass audience but as individuals. Make your customers happy and satisfied in the simplest ways possible.

Make your customer’s experience with your business personal and great online and offline meeting their needs through-out. This way, you will grow your customer’s trust and in turn boost your sales.