Coke & Nutella show the power of personal engagement
Personal engagement is fast becoming a great way to keep consumers interested in your brand.
Perhaps most common online, digital giants like Amazon and Netflix have used personalisation to attract customers for a while. By recommending programmes and products for the customer, they instantly create a relationship between company and consumer. The consumer feels that the brand knows what they want and this keeps people coming back for more. So it’s perhaps no surprise that brand giants like Coca Cola and Nutella want to get involved in the power of personalisation.
Share a Coke
The ‘Share a Coke’ campaign from the fizzy drink giants was popular all over the world. By adding names to coke bottles, people felt an instant personal connection to the brand, convincing them to purchase the drink. The campaign saw Coca-Cola grow its Facebook community by 3.5% and globally by 6.8%. The campaign also reversed declining sales for Coca-Cola. Thanks to the campaign, the company saw a 2.5% increase in total sales and soft drink volume went up by 0.4%.
Marmite saw the success of this campaign and used it for themselves. They gave consumers the chance to personalise a Marmite jar with theirs or someone else’s name when buying the product on their Facebook page.
Your Nutella, Your Way
Most recently, Nutella has realised the power of personal engagement and allowed customers to personalise jars of their chocolate spread with names in their ‘Your Nutella, Your Way’ campaign, with the campaign promoted on social media, print, TV, online and every other marketing channel! As is common with the huge influence of social media, this has become a trend on the likes of Twitter and Instagram, with people rushing to show off their personalised jars.
The fact that brands as big as Coke and Nutella have used personalisation in their marketing strategy, shows the power it can have. Consumers love to have something that is personal to them: Research by Hanley-Wood Business Media conducted in 2013 showed that 78% of consumers stated that brands that create unique and personalised content are more interested in building a relationship with them.
Big ideas for your small business
Although these examples of personalisation are by huge international brands with multi-million dollar marketing budgets, that doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible to small businesses. Personalisation can work on every level, even on a small budget.
Simply by taking the time to find out what your consumer wants and appealing to that directly, you are using personalisation in your marketing. This may be by constructing a dynamic email campaign for individual consumer groups, or by sending out personalised text messages to your customers. Personalisation is a great way to stand out from the crowd, whatever size your business is. Making the customer feel that you are interested in their consumer needs establishes a relationship that will keep them interested. This makes you stand out, even if what you’re are selling is no different from your competitors.
There are many ways you can use the power of personal engagement without breaking the bank, and it’s a great way of marketing your business.