Even cold-hearted marketers understand the importance of the personal touch, but despite useful modern technology it’s still easy to make mistakes. Here are four of the best ways to make sure your individual targets are reached efficiently and effectively:

Know your audience

This is really a case of taking a holistic approach to your research. The key is to gather and interpret not just as much data as you can find, but from as many sources as possible. This can be as crude as discerning an individual’s gender from their name, through to using demographic profiles. More sophisticated methods might be tracking not just what links a customer follows from an email, but which ones they ignore. Location analytics can help you visualise this data, for example by showing that you appeal more to an older audience in one area than in another.

Understand intent data

Intent data bridges the gap between knowing demographic details about an individual and knowing a customer’s purchasing history. Intent data is anything that indicates a particular customer is disposed towards your products or services. Their interest may have been indicated by signing up to a newsletter, viewing particular pages on your site, or adding products to a shopping basket but not checking out. With location analytics you can pinpoint patterns that tell you, for example, whether customers in a particular region may just need a little extra persuasion to buy through localised advertising.

Use relevant messages on relevant channels

Some marketers stress the importance of repeating messages such as branding slogans across all outlets. However, tailoring a particular approach to a particular channel creates relevancy and personalisation in communication strategies. This is important even if you aren’t writing with a specific individual in mind. Consider that billboards or newspaper ads are more about raising awareness and creating interest, while a follow-up email to a registered site user might focus on overcoming doubts about a potential purchase.

Create trust

The days of impulse-driven high street shoppers may be numbered thanks to a combination of more savvy, tech-enabled consumers and a lingering lack of economic confidence. Today’s shoppers will often look around before buying, comparing prices and reading reviews. The result is that they’ll encounter your messages several different times before making a final decision. Consequently, it’s vital that you are consistent and credible. Using location analytics is a good way to readily view which combination of your messages a particular customer will have seen, helping you maintain this consistency and trust.