Customer Expo 2019 is right around the corner, and we look forward to hearing Eliot Hamlisch, Senior Vice President of Global Loyalty & Partnerships for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, present on his brand’s personalization initiatives. Presently, personalization is a focus throughout the loyalty industry, but brands continue to face challenges in segmentation, one-to-one messaging, and other aspects.
Loyalty360 is constantly in conversation with industry leaders who are addressing these challenges. Joe Grusman, General Manager of E-commerce Marketing at Zappos, told Loyalty360, “The biggest challenge of personalization is creative debt.”
He said, “Take our homepage. It changes for seven customer segments, resulting in 112 different creative options. Couple that with the need to be ever-changing. It is something we are still figuring out. The benefit is that the homepage and corresponding pages are consistently tailored to the customers’ needs. For example, snow boots are on our homepage in December, but that may not be the most relevant image to a customer based in Miami.”
Interestingly, Patrick Walsh, Vice President of Marketing at Foot Locker, has said that brand partnerships can drive personalization. “We’re able to leverage our relationship with partners like Nike to reach a specific portion of our audience in a personalized manner. In this case, Nike fans who have made Foot Locker a part of their journey and everyday life as a sneakerhead. We brought the Nike die-hard story to life in the form of product and digital creative through the ‘Evolution of the Swoosh’ collection and ‘We Live Sneakers’ campaign. They were able to see a piece of themselves in our content by visually capturing a day in the life of a sneakerhead.”
In addition, Jodie Conrad, Chief Marketing Officer for Fazoli’s, noted that her brand has changed its approach to personalization. Now its communications are much more targeted. She said, “A lot of the earlier segmentation that we did was just about trying to manage and give the appropriate discounts so that we had insight into consumer behavior. The goal was getting the visit while also maximizing the visit’s profitability.”
She continued, “It’s only in this upcoming quarter that we’ll be adding some of those special offers that are targeted to behavioral segments, like for the people that are churchgoers or families with children. We’re tailoring offers to the specific group. As a consumer myself, if I get communications from brands about things like dollar kid’s meals, I don’t have anyone in my household that needs a kids’ meal. That isn’t relevant to me at all. It’s clear that they don’t know me and don’t know who they’re talking to. We want to have a better execution and perspective on that.”
Industry marketers working for companies in various stages of the brand lifecycle need to approach personalization differently. There’s no on one-size-fits-all approach. Fortunately, the thought leadership shared at Customer Expo 2019 will shed light on this important topic.