Segmentation and Personalization marketing strategies for this holiday season:

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As global e-commerce sales are set to breach the $4 trillion mark this year, e-commerce companies are looking to take a bigger share of the pie than their competitors.

Holidays are around the corner, and companies are looking to cash in on this festive season with a plethora of marketing tricks and strategies. But, we doubt if there would be a better marketing strategy than segmentation and personalization to get sales conversions. We will cover these strategies one by one.

So, first, what is segmentation? 

Segmentation is the process of visualising the customer base as distinct groups based on similar interests or characteristics. The act of segmenting makes targeting customers easier for marketers. Segmentation also increases the appeal for your content in the customers mind, and they are tempted to buy from you.  Thus your sales and revenue rise.

So, what do customer segments actually look like? Here are some of the commonest customer segments in the marketing parlance:

• Segments based on demographic factors- gender, age, occupation, marital status, income, etc.
• Segments based on geographic factors-country, state, city of residence. 
• Segments based on personality traits, value system, interests – 
• Segments based on behaviour – based on actions or inactions, spending/consumption habits, feature use, session frequency, browsing history, average order value, buying frequency, time of buying etc.

These segments we have listed above have several sub-segments, and there can theoretically be countless segments and sub-segments of customers. Marketing strategies need to target the particular segment/sub-segments that adds the most business value to them in terms of sales/subscription etc. 

How companies use segmentation to drive business growth-Explained with examples

• Luxury Car companies focus their ads and marketing strategies on the high-income groups because that's where the buyers are. This is an example of demographic segmentation.
• Online ed-tech companies such as Byju's focus their marketing strategies on students and parents.
• Cosmetic brands such as L'oreal, Lakme etc focus on women of a particular age group.
• Coca-Cola has a diverse basket of its drinks products for different geographies. While it sells bottled drinking water in Mexico, it sells a product called Kuat, a guarana based beverage in Brazil.
• John Deere, the famous tractor manufacturer, is known for selling snow blowers in the snowy Northeastern America region.
• Airlines and hotel companies reward customers with frequent flyer/buyer programs. E-commerce companies pin their marketing strategy heavily on tracking customers' online activity to increase leads, as well as conversions. 
• Tommy Hilfiger, the famous clothing brand, recently created an ad that targets environmentally conscious people, with their recycled denims.

How the segmentation marketing strategy can work for you this holiday season:

You may like to follow some of these segmentation strategies this holiday season to generate bumper sales for your company:

• Focus on targeting customers who bought from you last year this holiday season.

Your best sales conversion prospects this holiday season are customers who purchased products from you last year and are yet to purchase anything until now. You can spend time and energy on creating content to focus on targeting such customers. You may do this via your social media channels, email marketing, SMS, push notifications etc.

• Make high-value customers the primary target for your content marketing strategy 

You will be surprised to know how well your high-value customers respond to incentives or gifts you have for them. This holiday season, make it a priority to design attractive offers, and incentives to reward customers who frequently buy from you.

• Try bringing back high-value customers 

There may be customers who have spent considerable bucks buying from you but haven't been in an active buying mode for some time. You could target such customers. The winner, the better, since you do not know when they might just fall for your competitor's products this holiday season. Use clever marketing content to target them without sounding too salesy.

• Increase subscriptions

This strategy could work if you have a subscription program in your product offerings. Try and bring in customers who do not have your subscription program. You could also offer an incentive for a current subscriber for referring a friend who might be interested in your program.

The next marketing strategy that might come in handy for you this holiday season is personalization. 

Personalization marketing is a marketing strategy that involves presenting your customers with relevant content or messages based on their online purchase behaviour and activities. Personalized marketing helps you form personal bonding with your customer. With personalized marketing, your customers are able to develop a connection with your brand and are tactically coaxed into buying, thereby driving sales and conversions for your company. Personalized marketing believes in the fact that the one-size-fits-all approach does not work in marketing, and customers need to experience that personal touch through your content.

Personalization marketing strategies for business growth

Here are 5 personalized marketing strategies that we believe would definitely boost your sales and conversions:

• Design Landing pages that have a personal touch

Website landing pages or homepages are the first point of contact between your potential buyer and your brand. If you are able to design a homepage that establishes an instant personal connection between your potential buyer and your brand, half your job is already done. The presence of web technologies such as cookies helps e-commerce companies know their customers better, and design the most personalized homepage for them.

• Personalized online shopping assistants

Walking into a shopping mall, we do love shopping assistants helping us choose the items we need. Wouldn’t it be exciting to have the same when shopping online? Indeed, customers love it when they have such support and guidance. It makes the shopping experience more pleasant and effortless for them. Online assistance to customers visiting your website is very much a reality today, with modern web technology. Visitors to your site may be provided with size/style guidance or quizzes to help them make an informed buying decision. Even chatbots can serve as personalized shopping assistants.

• Display Recently Viewed Items

If an e-commerce website can display the recently searched/browsed items by an interested user, it makes the shopping experience easier and more convenient. This is because, for an average user, it's not possible to remember all the items they searched or showed an interest in.  These days, e-commerce sites with a shopping cart or "add to wish list" feature are a great way forward.

• Tailor the products page based on the location of the shopper

E-commerce websites can now know user location with the help of cookies or by quizzing them regarding their location. The location information can be used to present precise search results to the shopper. Information such as shipping costs etc further helps the buyer expedite his/her buying decision. Customizing product pages based on location is a simple adjustment yet it improves the shopping experience.

• Send personalized emails-

Email marketing is an effective strategy to get your customers to know you and your products. When you send personalized emails (for eg. an email with a personalized subject line) your customers are tempted to open the mail and read its contents.

So, this was a quick but exhaustive walkthrough of some of the best segmentation and marketing strategies to help your ecommerce company ramp up sales during this holiday season. We hope you benefit from it.

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