SUMMARY
The last decade has witnessed advertisers deploying advanced targeting tactics to woo audiences
Among financial services firms, user personalization has experienced a spike
2020 will see investments in driving hyper-personalisation efforts
Modern-day prospects are increasingly expecting customized experience when they engage with brands on the internet. In this era of limited consumer attention, as brands compete for a bigger share, personalisation is now imperative.
A recent global study by Adobe on ‘Digital Trends in Financial Services’ ranks optimizing customer experiences as the most exciting opportunity for their business, with areas like data-driven marketing that focuses on an individual, creating customized compelling content, and using AI to drive campaigns and experiences being highlighted as firms look to differentiate from the pile.
The study highlights that, in the financial services landscape, managing user journeys is a key focus area, with 31% of firms prioritizing efforts towards redefining customer journeys, compared to 19% of firms in other industries.
The last decade has witnessed an eruption of sorts in the way advertisers have deployed advanced targeting tactics to woo audiences. Hyper-personalisation, which is understanding the nuances of customer personas & intent at a deeper, intimate level, by leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to stitch unique experiences, has become the new world order.
Gone are the days of mass profiling. Marketers today have data points to discover subtle intricacies about online user behaviour, enabling them to serve experiences with razor-sharp precision.
Let’s take a close look at how firms are staying ahead of the curve with hyper-personalization trends in 2020.
Hyper-Personalisation Trends
Leveraging Predictive AI Models To Customize Pricing Quotation
An auto-mobile firm in California has paved the way for industry incumbents by harnessing massive investments in technological infrastructure and data-storage systems. These systems have enabled the de-fragmentation of humungous sets of customer data, which is then fed to AI models to analyze customer profiles. The predictive system, thus, serves a pricing quotation to the firm’s prospects.
Flexible ‘Pay-As-You-Use’ Insurance Policies
A leading US-based insurance firm, and one of our long-standing client partners, has led a paradigm shift in the insurance ecosystem. They allow hyper-personalization in the form of flexible, on-demand insurance, by allowing their customers to build a digital inventory of their possessions via a mobile app to secure home insurance.
Householders, thus, survey each article in the homes using a built-in video survey technology monitored by a certified surveyor. This seamless use of technology and a hyper-personalised experience means that consumers with few possessions don’t pay over the odds for insurance, and wealthier households aren’t underinsured when they file their claim.
Reshaping Product Discovery Experiences
A global home goods retailer has taken hyper-relevance to a whole new level with augmented reality on mobile devices. Users can scan a room in their home, then browse a product catalog to see what products would look like inside a room or space. Shoppers can zoom in, position the items, and search for products using specific criteria.
This not only improves the furniture-buying experience, but marketers can leverage the enormous amount of data gathered to enhance product recommendations going forward for individual users.
Leveraging Aesthetic Personalization To Create Brand Affinity
A digital-only BFS firm is disrupting the legacy banking space by targeting a demographic affinitive to digital. It enables its customers to create a unique identity through re-designing of the app only interface and app re-branding.
For instance, “Marvel’s Bank” has a nice ring to it. Allowing customers to create their product identities offers not only an exceptional experience but also has the potential to catapult the brand into everyday lives.
Among financial services firms, user personalization has experienced a spike. Financial services firms are creating tailored content for individuals. Such content provides users with messages at the right time in a format they have selected. In the financial services industry, the percentage of players that see personalized digital content as the most exciting opportunity over the horizon nearly doubled from 7% in 2018, to 13% in 2019.
Challenges Around Data Privacy
As advanced tech and platform enable advanced targeting, marketers also need to take cognizance of sensitive issues like consumer content and data privacy. Laws like the GDPR and the recent California Data Privacy Act have required advertisers to re-think strategies while implementing audience-based behavioral targeting campaigns. Brands must reflect transparency in how they collect & use data if they are to stay ahead in serving targeted experiences to prospects.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre, 79% of Americans are concerned about how companies use their data, while 64% expressed concern about how the government used their data. In India, among digital natives and the educated, this number is likely to be as significant.
Companies that want to create targeted experiences for consumers will have to be more forthright about how they collect and use data. Businesses may have to use less data more astutely to develop personalized and impactful marketing campaigns.
Data has proven that customized offers, messaging, and value proposition, drive better responses from customers when compared to standardized marketing efforts that treat a segment of customers as homogeneous. 2020 will see investments in driving hyper-personalisation efforts.
