Message Relevance and Personalization: the Name of the Game

Messaging has become not only a personalized way of communicating with your customer, but when it's relevant, becomes a necessity to understanding the needs and wants of your customer. Relevance and personalization with messaging allows you to go a step further in taking care of your customer, because you can target them with specific information.

How do I personalize my message?

The first thing to remember is that customers are not just numbers; they have a name, and like to be called that name when being addressed. If you are messaging them through your website on a live chat session or email, ensure you know their name. If you treat them like individuals who are a means to an end, you may not keep them as customers for very long. However, if you utilize relevance and personalization with messaging, you will foster trust and loyalty, which goes a long way toward keeping customers.Also, when messaging, take care of the language you use to communicate. Treat them like they're the gold standard, because they are - to your business. When conducting customer service, ask them for their feedback on user friendliness when doing business online; ask them what they liked about your service and business practice; ask them what you can do - as a company - better. This feedback is paramount to understanding your customer.

What do you mean by relevance?

When messaging a customer, it's integral to understand their needs and wants. If you send a mass generic email or text message to your customers not knowing if the message is relevant to them specifically, you will lose them. Why? Well, when was the last time you read something, particularly a long email, newsletter, or article that wasn't relevant to your needs? Bottom line is sending relevant messages allows you to connect with customers because you engage them. They add value, which in turn adds a level of personal contact, with which customers feel comfortable and at ease doing business with you.It's important to note that relevance and personalization with messaging usually utilize a certain tone or approach, such as being:

• Timely
• Informative
• Inspirational
• Challenging
• Empathetic
• Exciting
• Sure to include a call to action

In other words, they elicit some form of emotion. If you get a customer excited, hopeful, inspired, and the like, it becomes relevant to them, which results in feeling a personal connection with your company. When you've mastered the art of relevance and personalization with messaging, you're sending the right message, a message that tells your customers you understand their needs and are there to assist them.If the message is being ignored, it's time to rethink relevance and personalization. Are you engaging your customer by appealing to those aspects stated above? If not, time to go back to the drawing board.