Is it possible to have privacy and personalization at the same time? Are consumers asking for too much? It is not possible to blame the consumer for wanting to have both benefits, it seems a fair request in this new digital era where marketing agencies will have to work in a very original way to please the consumer and have a happy ending.
With the development of digital technology, the new generations are a little more aware that the privacy of their data is very important. However, today there is a dilemma that may even sound contradictory and that is that consumers demand privacy of their data but on the other hand, they also seek to have a personalized experience with the brands they like.
The interest of consumers in personalized experiences and the lack of digital trust
Many consumers are concerned about the security and privacy of the data that brands collect about them and, at the same time, frustrated when they do not meet their expectations in terms of the shopping experience. This conclusion is derived from a consumer survey conducted by Braze in association with Dynata.
This survey shows that the 49% of the respondents consider that the protection of personal data is more important than obtaining a personalized shopping experience. On the other hand, 53% of the respondents mentioned that they want to have relevant and personalized shopping experiences from a brand.
This lack of trust and poor personalization of experiences have cost American and European companies millions of dollars over the past year; In that sense, up to 47% of those surveyed say they have accepted all cookies when visiting a website, although 91% of consumers choose the “do not track” option when they are in an app.
This result sounds very contradictory, but here it is clear that the culprit is the consumer himself, since he does not take the time to understand what the function of cookies is on a website. This lack of understanding was reflected in 24% of those surveyed who stated that they did not know how to manage cookies as they were not interested in finding out.
However, when companies want to enforce website use regulations while striving to become extraordinarily responsive to changing customer needs, there is still a lack of trust among consumers in the digital environment, something that they must solve if they want to offer truly personalized experiences since many companies turn away their own potential customers without being able to obtain the information they are looking for, i. e., brands don’t know who they possible consumers are making the personalized experience difficult.
Building digital trust is possible
Personalization is the next wave of growth for brands operating in the consumer sector. However, it will not be achieved without motivating prior digital trust. If brands and marketers want to turn to personalization, they need to consider the following three points:
- Be direct. Ask your website visitors what you need to know. This can happen through subscription forms, email, social media, etc.
- Without a deep understanding of the customer, brands cannot offer the experiences that they demand. For this reason, you must pay attention to the search that the user has made on a website, which are the products that he has marked as preferred and which products he has left in the cart without making the purchase.
- Use third-party services to find out what products people consume on different web pages.
Keep in mind that the subscription forms must be very well designed so as not to overwhelm the user. You must assure him that the time he will lose filling out the form will be worth it, the user must know what he will get in exchange for answering these questions and thus, providing his information. As for strategy number three, it can be a difficult task since little by little cookies are disappearing and to a large extent, this has been one of the reasons why many users have stopped trusting them. People feel controlled and persecuted as they find what they have recently bought or searched for in different ads on their social media. In fact, users want brands to earn their trust by being more open and transparent about how they use their information.
You must invest in concrete insights. Personalized brands invest in predictive analytics, collaborating in an ecosystem of partners that collect consumer insights in real time and collect data from new lenses in order to understand the specific needs of customers. You will be able to act with confidence when you have paid attention to how the customer behaves or interacts with your brand.
Brands that get it right
The best thing one can do is learn from others, in this case, brands like Spotify and HBO Max have known how to get many users to provide their data. For example, Spotify Wrapped’s end-of-year campaign where it gives an insightful account of the listening habits of its users over the last twelve months thanks to the fact that it has paid attention to the activities of its users.
On the other hand, HBO Max has paid attention to what its Latin American subscribers were watching and implemented the first and second points mentioned and explained above. In this way, it was possible to know the preferences of users, provide them with what they were looking for and gain their trust. The strategy consisted of introducing surveys in the application (IAM) where users had to answer questions about the characters or athletes they liked the most. The results were that the CRM growth of up to 40%. In this way, HBO Max Latin America increased the participation of its users by 15%.
Give the user what they ask for
Create a new value for the consumer since 52% of those surveyed showed interest in providing their personal information to subscribe to certain brands and receive benefits and 37% are willing to provide data so that communication is more personalized.
As you can see, users say they are more willing to buy from companies that personalize the shopping experience, as long as their trust is not compromised.
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