Personalization fuels marketing success.
If you work in a digital space, you’re no stranger to personalization as it has been an intensive topic for years. By now you’ve probably heard personalization addressed in various forms to cover all aspects of the e-commerce space: digital personalization, 1-1 personalization, omnichannel personalization, content personalization, etc.
E-commerce websites have been very focused on end-to-end personalization – from the very moment a visitor arrives at the online store to the post-purchase interactions. Customers want a personalized experience, and it’s our job to give it to them.
As we shift attention away from brick-and-mortar stores and direct focus on digital stores, it’s become more challenging to know who is scrolling through your site and how they will respond to what they see.
Emotional personalization is the next step in e-commerce personalization that addresses the psychological aspect of online shopping by capturing emotional responses of visitors via their behavior and modifying experiences to best fit customer needs.
What is emotional personalization?
Emotional personalization is understanding consumer behavior and tailoring the customer experience to better suit the emotional needs of your consumers.
Marketers have long struggled to understand the abstract part of emotions and use them to make data-driven decisions for their e-commerce roadmaps. Thanks to emotional personalization, there are now actionable steps you can take to cover emotional needs.
The ability to recognize the emotional needs of your customer is the basis of building a long-lasting relationship with them. It’s something that’s done in person without too much thought. Below-average brands have one sales pitch and make their customers fit into their mold. Above-average brands recognize consumer behavior, react to emotional cues and adapt their approach to the needs of their audience to form a connection.
There’s no debate that it’s easier to read someone’s emotions and adapt to their needs in a face-to-face encounter. However, the ability to identify and respond to emotions is just as important in digital encounters as well.
Emotions impact the buyer journey
Think of the entire customer journey as a succession of micro-decisions. With this in mind, it’s important to recognize that 80% of decisions are emotionally driven.
Once we begin to reorient our thought process about the digital customer journey being an assortment of decisions, we can then understand how important it is to recognize and react to the different emotional profiles consumers have.
People are not always rational when it comes to purchasing decisions (have you ever heard of retail therapy?). Furthermore, not all people react in the same way.
Is your buyer more rational or emotional? Does your buyer want the fastest buying experience possible or do they want to take their time reading all available details to make a more informed decision? Does your buyer prefer a human focus or a product focus?
It’s no longer enough for brands to only understand customer demographics, basic user preferences and pain points. Grasping the emotional profiles impacting each decision will take personalization to a new depth.
How is emotional personalization possible?
Emotional personalization is possible through AI-powered technological advancements based on years of psychographic modeling and digital customer journey mapping.
AB Tasty’s new AI module, EmotionsAI, allows you to analyze and segment website visitors by their emotional needs and easily build experiences to satisfy those needs. The database fueling the AI module stems from extensive behavioral psychology studies that have been used to develop categories for visitors that determine the best way to convert them based on their emotional needs.
Visitors are classified into their emotional segmentations based on their behavioral patterns displayed on the site and device data. These patterns show underlying consumer needs such as:
- Immediacy – Visitors that want an immediate purchase appreciate a clear and no-frills experience.
- Competition – Consumers that love competition are heavily influenced by customer opinions and reviews.
- Safety – A strong presence of reassurance during the purchasing process soothes these shoppers and allows them to feel at ease with their purchases.
These are just a few examples of how you can emotionally personalize the buyer journey to adapt to different customer profiles.
Interested in learning more? Find out more about EmotionsAI
Tackle customer psychology with emotional personalization
Now more than ever, it’s crucial for brands to understand the psychological aspect behind personalization and leverage emotions throughout the digital customer journey. By creating positive emotional experiences, brands can build a deeper connection with their users, foster customer loyalty, drive satisfaction and heighten long-term success.
Emotional personalization is the best way to rise above the competition in the world of personalization.
**Note: As with any type of personalization, emotional personalization should respect consumer privacy and follow ethical protocols. Transparency tied to personalization is key to building trust with customers.
