Online marketing offers excellent reach and efficiency, but it’s easy to lose the personal touch. Even online, customers want to buy from real people and not faceless businesses.

Adding the personal touch to your online marketing can mean the difference between success and failure. The good news is that it doesn’t require a great deal of time and effort, just a little strategy and planning. Here are some ways you can add the human face to your business without burning out.

Know Your Audience Beyond Just Demographics

Personalizing your marketing starts with understanding your audience beyond age, location, socioeconomic status, and other surface-level demographic data. You need to know their buying behavior, preferences, pain points, and emotional motivators. When you know this data, you can cut through with a message that feels personal.

You can learn about your target audience through conventional methods like social listening and surveys, but here are some ways to dig deeper:

• Interviewing existing clients and customers
• Conducting surveys that include open-ended questions where the participant can respond freely (rather than multiple choice or ranking)
• Reviewing website analytics and analyzing visitor behavior
• Holding focus groups that allow participants to speak freely in an unbiased, no-pressure environment
• Using tools that give you personality insights such as IBM Watson Personality Insights, Humantic, or Crystal Knows.

Segment Your Audience

If you separate your audience into segments based on shared characteristics or interest, you can better personalize your marketing for those segments. Your audience can be segmented by demographics such as age or income level, geographic location, technological use (using PC vs. phone for example), interests, lifestyle, or buying behavior.

Define Your Brand’s Voice and Values

The key to authenticity is a clearly defined brand voice and core values. The brand is the personality of your business. If you’re not sure about your brand now, here are some ways to discover it:

• What is the mission or “why” behind what your business does?
• Why do your most loyal customers buy from you?
• What makes you different from other similar businesses?
• What are your unique strengths?
• How would you like to be seen by members of your target audience?

Demonstrate That You Care

A small gesture can go a long way in building a personal connection. Things like remembering details of individual customers, sending personalized thank-you or birthday messages, or bonding over a common interest unrelated to your business show that you care. Create opportunities for two-way personal communication and make an effort to remember details, including milestones like birthdays.

Timing Is Everything

You can create a more personal experience by being there at the right time. Learn from your customer data what time of day and days of the week they’re most active online and available to be engaged. Use these times for important communications.

Always Encourage Feedback

Personalization is how you set yourself apart in the crowded market and deepen your relationship with customers. All it takes is to listen to your audience members and give them what they’re asking for. Make it clear that you’re interested in their voices and give them plenty of opportunities to share their opinions with you.

When new people see your customers interacting authentically with you online, they’ll understand you’re a business worth dealing with.

Want to learn more about how you can build a stronger and more personal relationship with your audience? Head over here:

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