This article is the sixth in our series of posts focusing on content personalization: What is it, what are the benefits, and how can you implement it into your current marketing strategy? In our previous article, we looked at how to overcome content personalization hurdles so you can increase your ROI. Now, we are taking a look at some ROI marketing statistics (as if you weren’t already convinced of content personalization’s benefits!).
We’re deviating a bit in this post, because it is going to be packed to the figurative brim with marketing statistics. And even though our series has focused on content personalization, we’re going to take it a bit further by covering topics like video marketing and social media as well as customer service.
Ready? Let’s get statistical! Cue the Olivia Newton-John.
Content Personalization
We’re going to start off with our series topic of content personalization. At this point we’ve already given you a lot of information, so you have a good handle on what it is. Personalization can happen in nearly every aspect of marketing, from sending out emails to suggesting similar products to buy to offering a personalized experience. This personalization can make a big difference overall in multiple ways, such as brand loyalty, a better customer experience, and more profits. But it can be a difficult thing to do. In one of their surveys, Ascend2 found that 63% of marketers believe it is difficult to executive data-driven personalization online. Though difficult, it can make a significant difference:
- Recommendations work. If an item is recommended to a customer based on the information they have shared with the brand, 40% of customers will view the item. [Harvard Business Review]
- When brands offer a personalized experience, customers are 80% more likely to make a purchase. [Epsilon]
- Emails that have a personalized subject lines are opened 50% more of the time; otherwise, the average open rate is just under 21%. [Oberlo]
- Approximately 98% of marketers believe that personalization makes an impact on customer relations–because it does. In terms of personalization’s top five benefits, marketers believe that personalization increases visitor engagement and improved customer experience (both tied with 55%) and increased conversion rates (51%). [Evergage]
Social Media
It seems that everyone in the world has an account on at least one social media platform. Facebook has 2.38 billion active users each month while Instagram has 1 billion users and Twitter has 330 million. That means there is a lot of potential in terms of marketing to customers and improving relationships.
Wendy’s and Arby’s are killing the social media game. Wendy’s, with it’s snarky responses and humorous jabs at competitors like Burger King and McDonald’s, and Arby’s, with its mind for geek and pop culture, have impressed their respective audiences by making them laugh and being so darn relatable.
- B2B lead generation is possible on social media. In fact, around 42% of B2B businesses have acquired a new client through Facebook. [Social Pilot]
- When looking for a new brand or product, over 40% of consumers will turn to social media to conduct their research. [Global Web Index]
- Nearly half of Millennials and approximately half of Generation Z believe that the most relevant ad channel is social media. [Slideshare]
- Want to make sure your video does its job? You need to make sure it’s watched. Many individuals watch video content with the sound of, include 85% of Facebook’s users. Therefore, captioning your video/video ad can increase its watch rate by 12%. [Social Pilot]
Email marketing is not dead. While social media has definitely made a move to steal the spotlight, there is still a lot going for email marketing. By the end of this year, Hubspot reports that active email users will total 5.6 billion.
The return on investment for email marketing is huge. According to the Data & Marketing Association’s 2018 Marketer email tracker report, every dollar spent on email marketing delivers an average return of $32. But because spam still accounts for approximately 55% of email traffic on an annual basis, you need to be diligent in your strategy, ensuring that you are sending out relevant emails to your subscribers.
Email marketing is still loved by marketers because they know how important it is to their overall strategy and integrated marketing campaigns.
- Want to increase your email click rates? Just add video. Adding video content to your emails can boost your open click rate by a whopping 300%. [Martech Advisor]
- Marketing emails influence approximately 59% of consumers in terms of making a purchasing decision. [Hubspot]
- If you want to acquire new customers, rely on email, because it is 40 times more effective at doing so than Facebook and Twitter combined. [McKinsey]
- Be mindful of mobile. In just five years (2015–2015), email opens from mobile devices increased by 30%. [Campaign Monitor]
- Believe in the power of emojis: Of the marketers that use an emoji in the email subject line, 56% of brands experienced increased open rates. [Hubspot]
Video Content
Ah, video. Did you know that, as of the time of this post, YouTube reported that one billion hours of video is watched daily on the site? Talk about some serious video binging.
Video is part of nearly every aspect of your marketing strategy. You may have an advertisement on TV. You create a 30-second clip to go before or during a YouTube video. You include video as part of your blog post. You post a video to one of your dozens of social media accounts. It’s everywhere, it’s easily digestible, and it’s the type of content that visitors crave. According to a Hubspot Content Trends Survey in the third quarter of 2017, 54% of survey respondents said that they prefer to see videos from the businesses they support. And marketers are taking note, because according to a Wyzowl survey, 87% of marketers use video as a marketing tool, which is a 6% increase from 2018 and a 24% increase from 2017.
If video isn’t part of your strategy, it needs to be. With all the video editing/creation tools that currently exist, you can easily make quick videos to add to your emails, social posts, blog posts, and more. Even shorter, infrequent videos are better than having none. Having video can help you in so many aspects of your marketing.
- Consumers believe that video is the most memorable form of content. Approximately 21% of customers (overall) find video more memorable than other types of content. [Brightcove]
- Video marketers can anticipate a 54% increase in overall brand awareness. [Optinmonster]
- Got video? If you do, expect users to spend 88% more time on your website. [TJ McCue/Forbes]
- In terms of marketing communication, 36% of customers (overall) preferred video marketing communication. [Brightcove]
Customer Service
And last, but definitely not least, we have customer service. Today there are ample channels of communication through which you can interact with and serve your customers. Besides in-person at brick-and-mortar stores and phone calls, we have expanded to email responses and social media inquiries, online chat functions and texting back and forth with customer service representatives.
Exceptional customer service is huge when it comes to seeing a great ROI. When a customer has a poor customer service experience, it leaves a bad taste in their mouth—something that can’t be wiped clean by the fact that you may offer their preferred service or product.
- Social media is a great customer service opportunity, because of those customers that have a positive experience with your brand, 71% of the will recommend your brand to those in their social circle. [Ambassador]
- Plus, those who receive good customer service are likely to spend 21% more [Ambassador]
- To increase your profits, provide great customer service to retain your customers. A mere 5% customer retention rate can increase your profits from as low as 25% to as high as 95%. [Bain & Company]
- In terms of providing a good customer service experience, over 60% of adults want companies to value their time. [Forrester]
Put it Together for One Solid Strategy
When a strategy is crafted well, content personalization, social media, email, video, and customer service all work together cohesively to accomplish pre-determined goals. But they also ensure that you are getting more bang for your buck in terms of return on your investments.
For example, we know that users shop on social media for new products. A personalized ad on one of these social channels can direct them to your website, where they can watch a video to learn more about your particular product. A chat feature allows them to talk to a customer service representative and ask questions. And finally, when it has been some time since their last visit but they have not yet made a purchase, you can send a reminder email (and maybe a coupon to nudge them along!).