By acknowledging and embracing key digital trends, small businesses can reap the same rewards as a large enterprise.
Driven by advances in technology and by the way users interact with technology, small businesses face both a threat and an opportunity. By understanding several key trends and developing a roadmap to adapt, small businesses can accelerate growth, optimize operations and create value throughout their organizations.
Personalization. We have surpassed the days of adding a customer’s first name to the “Dear customer” line in an e-mail and calling it personalized. Today, personalization delivers an engaging experience to a specific consumer. It spans websites, e-mail and across devices such as smartphones and tablets. We use data to create an ever deepening understanding of our customers, and we measure everything. While this may sound like the purview of mathematicians in lab coats, the use of data to drive decisions and personalize conversations [should] start small.
Success is about a deep understanding of customers, and an ability to communicate a relevant message is critical. First, identify key needs within your customer file, and then create tailored messaging to speak to that need. The first phase in the journey may be sending three different e-mails to prospects based on interests rather than that single blast to all. In the near future, you may find this has iterated to a fully automated data-driven process that creates an individualized contact strategy for each customer.
