Marketers today live in an ocean of data and it is very easy for them to get lost in this data. However, using this intense data meaningfully to create a unique experience for customers can bring a customer closer to a brand. Paul Writer in Association with IBM hosted a webinar to gain insights on how personalization can transcend customer experience to a magical level. The discussion was centered on two key questions:
- How do we use our customer understanding to create a unique personalized experience?
- How do we use technology to enable this personalization and experience to our customers?
Jessie Paul, CEO, Paul Writer shared her insights on personalization and customer experience and was followed by Uma Talreja, Chief Digital Officer, Raymond and Antonia Edmunds, Executive – AP Sales – Watson Marketing Software Solutions, IBM who shared their experience and insights on how personalization can benefit both customer and the brand.
Uma Talreja at the very outset set the pace of discussion where she pointed, “Personalization done right, doesn’t look like marketing.”
She further explained her stance by clarifying that successful personalization is a hotel giving pillows that are comfortable, or understanding the needs of a customer depending on their gender. She stressed, that personalization at an individual level is difficult, especially when brands are dealing with so many customers at the same time. A brand however, has to be proactive enough to listen to the customer and find unique solutions for their needs.
Uma said, ” Brands must use customer data wisely and remain relevant for the customer. One must remember that there is very thin line between staying relevant and behaving creepily and a marketer must be smart enough to recognize this gap.” Below is an example from her deck about this difference between relevance and spamming. 
You can view her entire deck here: Personalized Marketing Webinar- Uma Talreja
The discussion was further enriched by Antonia Edmunds from IBM who pointed that every brand realizes that they receive limited attention from the customer. Therefore, every marketing strategy is competition for the customer’s attention.
Agreeing with Uma Talreja, Antonia also stressed on the importance of relevancy and how personalization is the best place to boost this brand relevance.
You can view her entire deck here: Insights: Personalization- Antonia Edmunds
“Customer expectations are being shaped by their last best experience.” This criterion makes personalization complicated for marketers. She also pointed out that most of the data available today is fragmented across various tools, one way to ensure “magical” customer experience is to compile this data. Such a compilation would give an in-depth understanding of the client which according to Antonia is the key to delivering a consistent customer experience.
Watch Recordings:
