Want your business to survive and thrive? You better know how to anticipate your customers’ individual needs. It’s not enough to try to woo consumers with broad-based messages, and once you’re 100% certain how they’ll react. Predicting behaviors based on real-time data is the name of the game. And it’s at the heart of the future of personalization.
Sure, technologies like AI will help your company get there. However, it’s up to your team to be able to interpret the data while using it ethically and wisely. While personalization will become more integrated across channels, instantaneous, and predictive, some of yesterday’s principles can still apply. Overdo it, and you’re likely to alienate instead of convert. Get ready to explore how personalization is changing in 2025 and beyond.
Proactive Engagement
Gathering data from third-party sources like website cookies and industry reports only goes so far. You can use it to create generic buyer personas with demographics and a few lifestyle factors. These personas might tell you who your target audience is and in which direction their behaviors have leaned.
Yet, all this info and speculation doesn’t predict how this audience will engage with your brand today. More importantly, you won’t know how individuals within a larger segment will behave or their granular needs. This is where predictive audiences have the upper hand.
Instead of relying on generalized data, you leverage real-time, customer-supplied information. Yes, you’re also relying on AI to combine it all and work like a crystal ball. The tool simulates an intuitive prediction but aims to stimulate proactive engagement. You can mitigate individual churn risk, discover new segments, and increase the accuracy of your product recommendations. It’s about tailoring the experience based on anticipated needs and wants.
Omnichannel Integration
You’re already familiar with omnichannel marketing since over half of B2C consumers interact with 3-5 channels per purchase. Say you browse a store’s app and select your favorite items. Later in the week, you get an email saying “Great news, your favorites are on sale!” You think for a few seconds and decide to pounce. Within minutes, you’ve completed your purchase, scheduling a pick-up after work at one of the brand’s nearby stores.
The company has made your shopping experience personalized and seamless. There is a smidge of anticipating your needs there; perhaps you were price-shopping and waiting for a better deal. But what would happen if that anticipation got more sophisticated?
Say you research online for a new pair of running shoes. Minutes later, an email pops up in your inbox with the specs for the shoes you were looking at earlier. The email reiterates the benefits of those specifications, inviting you to virtually see how those shoes look on your feet. You then pull up your social media feed and find an ad with a discount for the same product. The choice is yours, but you can have the shoes shipped or pick them up at a store.
Of course, there’s a chance you don’t want to buy today. Maybe you were researching running shoes for a reason unrelated to your interests. The website lets you indicate this with a one-question survey of why you’re visiting. The brand lets you opt out of marketing emails and hide the ads so you’re not bombarded with irrelevant messages. You always have the option to change your mind, changing your level of interest when and if you’re ready.
Loyalty Program Customization
Right now, loyalty programs are mostly about incentivizing customers to buy again. These programs are also about getting existing clients to take it up a notch. Instead of booking a standard hotel suite, there’s more value in reserving a room with an indoor hot tub. Likewise, you might score more points if you purchase a bakery treat with your morning cup of coffee.
These incentives are nice, but they may not anticipate your immediate needs. An email inviting you to activate additional reward points tomorrow for a bakery plus coffee purchase might fall flat. You hardly purchase bakery items because you’re counting calories. Plus, you’re a vegan who is concerned about potential animal-sourced ingredients.
Now, what if the brand analyzed your tendency to always customize your drinks with oat, soy, or coconut milk? The company also sees you’ve never engaged with incentives for bakery items. You tend to respond to messages about extra reward points and discounts on beverage purchases. Plus, you make most of your purchases before 10 a.m. A targeted message with an incentive for a new vegan-based coffee drink in the morning would better anticipate your needs.
The Future of Personalization
Consumer surveys show there’s a disconnect between their perception of personalized experiences and what brands think. Only 43% of consumers view their interactions as personalized, while 61% of brands perceive a higher amount of personalization. In other words, marketers think they’re individualizing customer experiences much more than they are.
So, brands may be using strategies and tactics that consumers don’t find relevant. If you get an email with your name in the subject line, is it really personalized? It’s like getting a piece of regular mail. Your name and address are supposed to be on it, but it means little. But it’s meaningful if the same piece of mail offers a package deal on a European trip you’ve been eyeing.
Personalization is about to get more predictive, integrated, and individualized. These changes are already in the works, but as technologies like AI advance so will the strategies and tactics. Customer experiences will feel more like a conversation with a friend who gets you. Brands will reveal what you need or want before you reach the same conclusion.
