At the intersection of technology and psychology: Why an effective personalization strategy relies on empathy

Obviously, in 2023, many representatives of online trading have already realized that the personalization of experience in digital channels allows you to positively influence conversion, engagement and, as a result, sales. This is especially true for players in the field of online trading of consumer goods: online clothing stores, food, online cinemas, e-pharmacies, etc. It is in their case that the transaction cycle is short, sales volumes can be scaled up multiple times, and decisions about buying by users are made quickly and sometimes impulsively.

Only approaches to personalization, the quality of experiments and hypotheses, as well as the technological capacities used remain different. Commodity recommendations, for example, are sometimes configured manually by marketers based on a commodity catalog - according to novelty, popularity, product rating. Or, for example, they script individual campaigns by segment. Advanced and mature teams use AI algorithms to proactively offer relevant stocks or products.

Artificial intelligence is a really good helper in matters relating to user experience on the site or in the app. It can process large amounts of information and detect non-obvious dependencies inaccessible to the human brain. But there is something that AI cannot do without human intervention. When selling goods or services to people, do not forget about an important component that will help you take your personalized campaigns to a whole new level. It's about empathy.

Why empathy is important

~: text =% E2% 80% 9CSomething% 20like% 2090% 20to% 2095, by% 20the% 20emotional% 20brain% 20system.% E2% 80% 9D A Stanford University study suggests that 90 to 95% of our decisions are somehow driven by emotion. Client paths, ^[1] of client paths, are somehow woven from a sequence of tiny solutions of each individual user. Buyers who like to compete and be the first will be flattered to purchase something from a limited collection or limited edition. Suspicious visitors will want to double-check the security of payments on your website or be able to pay for a purchase upon receipt. Those who are afraid of Internet scammers and phishing links will definitely go to your site from your official account on the popular social network with a tick, and not from a search query. Those who are always in a hurry will be delighted with free and fast delivery.

It is the understanding of what users are worried about, what pleases them or scares them, what is important to them that allows you to correctly form a pool of hypotheses for future experiments and campaigns, as well as a general strategy for promoting your online resource.

If it is rational to show beautiful and detailed photos of the product with an indication of the material from which the product is made, then emotional is about the feeling that possession of this product can carry. Just showing a beautiful dress is one thing, and presenting it in a ready-made image on a model with accessories is completely different, it's about emotions.

That is, by combining your rational analytics and using emotional triggers, you can create really converting campaigns and multiply sales on the site or in the application.

Sell an item VS sell a dream

Creating emotions for your online campaigns is important to remember that emotions are subject to both emotional buyers and rational ones. It's just that the nature of the emotions that you have to fix will be different. We conventionally call rational buyers pragmatists, and emotional buyers - hedonists.

So, pragmatists will expect the following properties from the experience provided:

• quality of goods;
• brand and production ethics;
• clarity of descriptions, details of compositions;
• delivery speed;
• quality of service, etc.

At this time, the hedonist will be in search

• comfort in terms of both usability and logistics (it is more pleasant to order from the sofa than to go to the other side of the city);
• payment security;
• trendy goods.

For hedonists, belonging to certain communities is also important: for the owner of a branded thing, belonging to the class of such happy owners is more important than the thing itself. In this case, you are selling not the product itself, but the dream of belonging to the community.

Building a Roadmap for Personalization with Empathy

Realizing that the use of human knowledge about psychology and emotions and the ability of artificial intelligence to process and compare big data, we slowly and surely come to the idea that the entire personalization strategy must be built with technological and powerful tools taking into account these very knowledge about empathy.

Start by exploring the basic needs of your audience. If you are engaged in online banking, the primary need for your audience will be the protection and security of their personal and banking data. If you are an aggregator site, then comfortable ^[7] and convenience in using your resource is the basic need of your CA. Therefore, first of all, it is worth building your strategy and focusing on the largest part of your audience. This will allow you to get a quick and great effect and response, as well as understand which way to move on.

It is important not to be afraid to start here: we start with small campaigns and changes - ^[8] order ^[9] a small banner, highlights or personalized collections of goods. Choose tools where there is a visual editor - this will allow your non-technical teams to quickly conduct tests and experiments, draw conclusions without attracting additional development resources.

An AI solution that will help you understand your audience

SberLead from Sber Business Software is a platform for optimizing the conversion and personalization of user experience with an advanced system of product recommendations. SberLead contains ready-made site personalization tools that are easy to customize and adapt to your business goals, as well as track statistics on each tool.

Recommendation system

Product recommendation feeds based on artificial intelligence algorithms and analysis of the array of technical, contextual and behavioral data of users. The ribbon can be created in three steps: download the catalog of goods, select the display page and customize the design according to the finished template. In SberLida there are 2 options for product recommendations for companies of various sizes.

Interactive widgets

Pop-up widgets on the site can be used for various purposes: attract and retain a visitor, collect contact details, offer similar products or talk about news and promotions. Simple configuration in several steps will allow you to quickly launch them on the site, and at any time you can make changes to the widget used.

SberLida team expertise

Our specialists have many years of experience working with different clients and their CRO strategies of different complexity and scale, as well as experience working with different mechanics and segments of the audience, including using the knowledge of psychology and behavioral patterns of users.

Integration with CRM and your stack

We can integrate with your CRM system and use it as one of the data sources (along with open sources, product catalog data, behavioral data on the site, etc.) in order to form both general and personal recommendations and display them in all your digital channels. We also provide native integrations with the SberCRM platform, Bitrix24 and Telegram.

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