Personalised touches increase customer loyalty, as the customer will likely feel connected with your business. All businesses make mistakes now and then, but those that are most loyal to the brand are less likely to dwell on these mistakes. Instead, they will overlook them and continue purchasing from your business. In addition, there are ways that adding personalisation to your products can open up new lucrative opportunities and markets for your business. In this article, we take a look at how adding personalised touches can increase customer demand.
Gifting market
Products such as coke have huge amounts of demand. However, they’re not seen as an item that you would give to a friend at Christmas or a birthday. Through personalisation, Coca-Cola changed this and opened up new gifting markets. They created a series of cans and bottles with people’s names on them and allowed people to create their own personalised cans or bottles online. People chose to do this as a Christmas present for their friends and family that loved to drink coke. The personalisation of coke cans and bottles was a huge success for Coca-Cola; they managed to increase sales by around 3%. This shows that personalisation can increase consumer demand by opening up new gifting opportunities.
PR stories
Unique personalisation can lead to additional PR opportunities, which can help to boost brand visibility and increase customer demand. In addition to the increase in demand from the gifting market, Coca-Cola was able to create stories surrounding its personalised Coke campaigns. This personalisation had never been done before; it was, in effect, unique in the drinks market. Publications picked up on this and wrote stories about the campaign. This PR helped Coca-Cola even further as it increased its marketing visibility and put its brand front of mind.
Shareability
People spend a vast amount of time on social media; they’re always looking for new things to share with their friends to gain popularity on the channel. Brands that can tap into this have the opportunity to increase demand and gain free marketing. Personalisation is a great way to do this. Going back to the example of personalised Coca-Cola bottles and cans, people were delighted when they found their name in the shops, especially if they had a particularly unusual or long name that was challenging to find. Once they found their personalised coke can or bottle, they shared it with their friends and followers on social media. These shares encouraged others to find their name and increased demand for personalised bottles of Coke. This can also work for personalised gift boxes; customers are more likely to share gift boxes with their name on them with their friends and followers on social media, providing free marketing for the business. This can help businesses to gain more customers and a better online following.
Attracts attention
Personalised items can attract other people's attention; customers may find that friends and family ask them where they got the item and how it was personalised. Clothing items often draw attention from others when they’re being worn. Items in the home that draw attention include personalised pictures or personalised artwork, such as a neon sign with the family name. People will be more likely to notice your personalised items, which will result in you gaining more customers through word-of-mouth marketing. This is only really applicable when the product itself has been personalised.
Additional functionality
Being able to personalise items can help to improve their functionality in some cases. For example, personalised towels may help to stop arguments in the home between siblings. Personalised mugs can give everyone a sense of ownership over their item and make them feel special. A personalised everyday item such as a bottle opener is functional and has sentimental value when engraved with a personalised message. Tailoring is another slightly different form of personalisation, but it can help clothing fit better or create items suitable for the customer's specific needs. When items have additional functions due to their personalisation, they often fetch a higher price.
Personalisation is a great way to help businesses become recognised and increase the demand for their products. Consider personalisation options if you’re looking for ways to improve your growth strategy.