Gartner predicts that 80% of marketers will abandon their personalization efforts in the next 5 years. It attributes this to a lack of real return on investment and the challenge of managing customer data.
Gartner goes on to cite other obstacles relating to data, namely: increased privacy regulations, technical barriers to tracking customer behavior and a decline in consumer trust.
Statements like the ones below are commonplace in large organizations with legacy structures and systems.:
- Don’t have enough of the right data
- Have lots of disparate data, but no single view of the customer
- Managing customer data is difficult and expensive
- Unable to calculate the return on investment from personalization efforts
- Privacy regulations make it too risky to gather, store and process data
- More technologies are blocking behavior tracking, affecting data quality
- Consumers are becoming more skeptical about the benefits of sharing their information
Our expert’s view on how to win at hyper-personalization:
There are a number of reasons why companies find personalization so difficult, and yes, data is often at the center of the challenge.
You can begin by benchmarking the starting point and endpoint of each element in your journey to hyper-personalization:
- List the elements that are vital to achieving hyper-personalization
- Define the starting point – where you are now
- Define the endpoint – what you want to work towards
- Identify a set of incremental, achievable goals that take you from the starting point to the endpoint
Here’s an example:
| Element | Starting point | Finishing point | |
| Data | Absence of processes to capture data needed for personalization | → | Multiple processes in place to gather personalization data |
| Data Connectors | Data available in silos but no connectors exist | → | Connectors exist to provide a consolidated view of siloed data |
| Single view of customer | No single view of customer | → | Single view of the customer across the organization |
| Data Analytics | No data analytics tool | → | Data analytics tools that provide customer Insights in real-time |
| Tracking | No ability to record how customers are engaging with communications | → | Dynamic tracking of engagement with communication |
As with anything worth achieving, getting hyper-personalization right is a journey, not a destination.
It requires multiple initiatives that aim to move each contributing element in the right direction.
Elizabeth Stephen
VP of Customer Engagement, The Americas
We can help you win at hyper-personalization
Striata is a leading provider of digital customer communication solutions that improve customer experience and advance the digital transformation of a company’s communication strategy.