Don`t creep out your client

If you want your customers to trust you with their hard-earned money or company budget, you first need to put yourself into their shoes. Forming a trusting bond is something that usually happens based on our instincts. How can I be someone to trust? Customers start to rely on you if they have a feeling that you are valuing their time with relevant content, not with blinking banners and special offers. Here are some golden rules on how and when to approach a customer.

Create suitable buyer personas

First and foremost, it is important to segment your customer base. If you lump into together the out-of-college test engineer and the near-retirement procurement manager, you may run into some issues on how to create content that fits all kinds of personalities.

The key here is to find two or three main target groups and to define a typical persona which still matches a real person you actually know. Keep this person in mind, you can go ahead and design a personalized campaign. When your unique content then reaches a destined customer, chances are high that he feels valued and trust is established.

Entertain with playful and engaging content

Never in history have we been exposed to so much information. As a result, attention spans have plummeted in recent years. People reading articles, emails, and text messages have to get more and more efficient in browsing content, resulting in ignoring a big chunk of content altogether. In regards to customer communication, you now have to step up your game. If your content is easily readable, fun, informative and entertaining, chances are high that readers will actually read it and absorb the messages you intended to convey.

Don’t force yourself onto the customer

You think your subscribers will be grateful for your twice-a-week update on your product development? Think again, as this leads readers to silently unsubscribe. There is a golden ratio for every industry and audience. It is best to start slow and put focus on the quality of the content rather than on its frequency.

“You won a free iPad!”, “Get your 70% discount now!” These headlines used to work on a big scale in the past, but are already outdated.

Customers’ behavior has evolved along with all kinds of marketing tricks. Most people are now resistant to pure clickbait and start to distrust a brand which decides to approach them this way. Quality content which also creates trust means addressing readers personally, stating the author of the content (e.g. Lisa – the customer service agent or Steve – the technical director, …) creates a 1-on-1 conversation in the perception of the reader.

Personalization needs to be consistent

With all the different contact points a customer has with your enterprise, you want to stay consistent in the way you approach them. Customer letters, offers or contracts – all these types of communication, regardless of the communication channel need to have similar appearance and lingo. In the mind of the reader you need to appear as an identical persona. This way you strengthen the recognition value of your brand and use your full potential.

Suitable tools do the footwork and allow you to focus on your vision

In practise it can be kind of overwhelming to think about changing your digital workflow yet again. Many companies set up various Word templates to get a short-term solution. But working this way can lead to many errors, as templates need to be always up to date and mistakes happen when filling them out.

When you want a failsafe solution, which automizes these processes, then you should rely on a customized solution offered by Infinica. With different platform modules for template creation/management and personalized creation of customer communication in different formats for different communication channels, many different use cases can be covered. All these tools are tailored to your needs and your existing workflow. Once set up, you can again focus on the creative parts of designing the personalized customer experience.