The power of personalization: Increase sales with strategic product recommendations

Today's customers value and appreciate online personalization. Online personalization is necessary for your business to engage, retain and create loyal customers.

The online world is crowded and only getting bigger and noisier over time. Our customers are bombarded with choices, making it difficult to stand out from the crowd. One way to get an edge over the competition is to personalize the customer experience.

Strategic Product Recommendations (SPR) is a powerful tool in your marketing toolkit that addresses the needs and preferences of your individual customers. Are you familiar with SPR? You should be, and this blog will help you understand how this capability can be a game changer in building and maintaining long-term customer relationships.

Strategic Product Recommendations (SPR) are personalized suggestions presented to your customers based on their browsing behavior, purchase history, and preferences. When you browse a brand's website and products, you may notice that the website starts suggesting other products to you based on your search queries, and this is no coincidence.

Unlike generic recommendations, SPRs are precisely tailored to each customer profile. Sophisticated algorithms and analytics predict what a customer is likely to buy next. This marketing approach improves the overall shopping experience and increases the chances of conversion. It's a win-win situation for the customer and your business. A customer feels valued when they are understood through personalization.

Easy-to-understand SPR examples

Here are two good examples to help you get an idea of ​​the SPR:

A customer visits your website where you sell cookware and each time they repeatedly search for a specific cookware line, for example Le Creuset. These are the user's past preferences and behaviors. The next time they visit your website, they will see an SPR suggesting a new release from the brand, perhaps in a different color or product type, for example saucepans instead of casserole dishes.

A personalized product recommendation might offer the repeat customer their favorite brand of cookware, but it might also show more expensive products with limited availability. At this point, the goal is for the repeat customer to appreciate the personalized suggestion and add the product to their shopping cart.

Another example is the women's health industry. A brand that offers products to treat and prevent urinary tract infections may have repeat customers who purchase urinary tract infection medications multiple times on your website.

Because they've tried one of your products repeatedly, an SPR may suggest other products to them the next time they visit your website, such as vitamins and supplements you sell to prevent future infections. You can also give them a personalized offer to bundle these products. This not only shows them that your company understands their needs, but also generates upsells. You can also include links to blog posts that provide additional information on how to use your products or their condition.

How does SPR work optimally in the backend?

SPR's mechanics combine technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data analytics to identify patterns, preferences, and behaviors in massive amounts of data.

These patterns and information enable you to deliver relevant product recommendations tailored to the current stage of the customer’s journey.

Adding SPR to your website will make a huge difference

Getting the most out of SPR requires some time and strategy. Check out some helpful action steps:

Collect and analyze your data

Data is at the heart of SPR. Work with your website developer to implement tools and systems to collect data from multiple sources, including website visits and interactions, purchase history, and social media activity. This data will help you better understand your customers' behavior and strengthen your SPR.

Segment your target groups

It's fair to say that not all customers are the same, which is why segmenting your audience is helpful for personalization strategies. Segment your audience by demographics, behaviors, and history to customize their experience.

Suggest recommendations that fit the customer journey

Every time a customer clicks to a different page on your website, it's an opportunity for personalization. Every touchpoint, including the homepage, product pages, search results, checkout page, etc., should include a recommendation. This will ensure that relevant product suggestions are constantly presented to the customer.

A/B testing can increase your success

Experiment with different content and continually optimize your recommendations. A/B testing is a tool that allows you to compare, evaluate and refine your approach to get the most customer interactions and conversions.

Build trust with your loyal customers

Always inform your customers about how you use data for recommendations. This builds trust and transparency with them and gives them the ability to adjust and update their preferences. It also helps you comply with data protection laws such as GDPR and CCPA.

Update and refresh recommendations for relevance

Keep a close eye on your product recommendations. Keep them fresh and relevant. Don't let them get stale and old. Update your product inventory and recommendation algorithms to reflect trends, seasons, and availability.