Ultimate Guide on Website Personalization: Tools, Ideas, and Real Life Examples

It’s no secret that a successful business organization is built upon powerful marketing strategies. But implementing a successful strategy requires you to consider several factors that foray into the digital and web-based markets, with aspects such as social media presence, paid advertisements, and community engagement playing key roles in marketing success. Amongst these, an often overlooked factor that has a similarly significant impact is website personalization.

Website personalization is a strategy that can result in a noticeable increase in customer engagement, conversions, and brand loyalty. This happens because you offer users a unique experience through the website’s personalization tools, though note that to do this, its important to have information about your users’ preferences and browser behavior.

There are several parts of your website to implement this personalization, and it can feel overwhelming when starting out. But below, we’ll go over some of the best website personalization ideas and examples to help you visualize how you can take advantage of this key aspect of user engagement.

What is website personalization?

Website personalization is a strategy that will allow you to create a unique experience for each visitor, satisfying their needs. Since you will target customers according to their behaviour, you will need data that helps you determine which products or promotions might interest them.

website personalization

Benefits of website personalization

With the website personalization ideas we will present below, you can bring endless benefits to your company. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Customer engagement

You can boost your customer engagement using website personalization tools since you will offer your website’s visitors targeted content relevant to their interests and purposes. Plus, you will be able to generate more leads and accelerate the purchasing experience for any user.

Build loyalty

With all the data you gather from the website personalization tools, you can create a unique marketing experience. That will allow you to build brand loyalty, even with new customers. To get more information, you can even acquire an identity management tool. 

More conversions

If you understand what your clients are looking for, you will know how to construct more effective strategies. Using things such as audience insights reports, you can understand the preferences of all clients. That way, you can show them what they want. In the long run, this will increase your conversions. 

website personalization

Personalized notifications

Remember that website personalization does not stop there since you need to keep in touch with your customers. For instance, you can send emails to all customers offering promotions on items they already bought. Plus, you can also use this to market all the new articles in your store.

Website Personalization Ideas

Now that we’ve answered “what is website personalization,” your next question might be “What are some examples?” So we’ve compiled a list of specific examples that some entities are using to build their web platforms. Take a look to see what you might be able to make use of for your own website personalization.

Show recognition for loyalty

Your users need to feel like they’re a welcome and essential part of your organization. A straightforward way of conveying this is to greet returning customers with a standard greeting and a returnee benefit, such as a discount coupon or a free sample of your digital products. This makes users feel valued as individuals and increases goodwill and brand loyalty, and is used across countless platforms as an effective engagement tool.

Make suggestions

If you already know the browser behaviour of your customers, you can use this data to suggest products based on their buying cycle. Suggesting content or products that are similar to those they’ve already viewed or purchased on your platform can increase convenience as well as the size and number of conversions you receive. A good personalization website example is a platform like Amazon, which provides excellent suggested content through their “related to items you’ve viewed” sections.

website personalization

Customize testimonials

When you are a big company, chances are you offer different services to your customers. For example, let’s say some of them purchase a social media marketing package while others pick an SEO one. Instead of showing them general testimonials, you can classify the users and divide the reviews. That way, clients will only see information regarding their interests.

Unique experience

Companies such as Stitch Fix have become masters when it comes to personalizing the experience of their users. For example, this clothing store collects the information of all users through a series of questions and compares it to the data they already have. As a result, the client will receive hand-picked items that will match their style. Creating your own unique experience can be a great way to make your platform stand out from competitors and remain memorable for your users.

website personalization

Tailoring to their needs

When customers arrive at your landing page, it’s necessary to help them quickly find the content they want. However, users can soon decide to end their session with you if your interface is too complicated or hard to navigate. To resolve this, ensure your website is designed for optimal, intuitive usage and provides essential information in short, easy-to-understand segments. For example, list categories of content you have available in a noticeable, neat format so users can quickly access what they’re looking for.

Storing their progress

If you are looking for the best website personalization examples, you should visit Hulu or Spotify’s platforms for some of the best. Their programs and web platforms will store progress through a selected series and notify users when new episodes or songs are available. In a similar vein, compiling your content offerings into categories and series and offering them as a set can increase the amount of time your users spend engaging with your platform and encourage them to come back and pick up where they left off.

Different background image

To sell your services to a specific client, you need to show them you care. The good news is that you can do this just using a different background image that resonates with their products. For instance, use sports-related visuals for posts, articles, and other media related to

Showing live chat

Even though many companies have a live chat available to all users, a better strategy is choosing which clients could need it. What does that mean? The purpose will be to identify high-value customers that are more likely to make a conversion. That way, your team can have more personal conversions that will increase your sales. 

With all the website personalization ideas that we have explained above, we are sure that you will notice a boost in your customer loyalty in no time. If you’re looking for more ways to use website personalization to spruce up your platform, check out Viafoura’s array of online community engagement solutions to see how we can help.

Online Community Manager: Job Description, Jobs & Salaries

The digital world we live in has changed the way people interact with companies and how they make purchases. Now, with the spreading influence of online communities and their increasing role in building a brand identity, building a brand’s reputation and awareness online is a must these days, including social media and organic presence, among many other things.

Companies need a savvy online community manager to help build a reputation as a community-based brand and engage with their audience. In addition, an online community manager can help build trust, position a brand, and improve user engagement. Think about it as a role that creates a bridge between a brand and its customers. They act as a moderator that serves as a spokesperson for the brand and communicates intent between them.

What Does An Online Community Manager Do?

A community manager is a person who usually is working closely with the Digital Marketing department. They are responsible for ensuring all the content follows the set guidelines and expanding the brand’s online community. This usually means they will also be in charge of implementing the digital engagement strategies. It is important for a community manager to understand what sets a community apart from an ordinary audience online.

The good thing about this position is that it requires skills that you can gain through different degrees. This means that it doesn’t matter whether you are a journalist or a public relations specialist – as long as you meet the requirements, you can apply to and find success in this position.

But before you start sending your resume to different companies, take a look at the online community manager job description.

Online community manager

Online Community Manager Job Description

An online community manager is responsible for building, growing, nurturing, and managing online communities. This role entails performing community management around a specific brand or purpose.

Online Community Manager vs. Social Media Manager

Even though the tasks of an online community manager and social media manager are similar, these are two different positions. The critical difference between the online community manager job and social media manager job is how they interact with the audience.

While the former is responsible for communicating as a brand, promoting products and services, an online community manager is responsible for the entire holistic brand strategy in the digital landscape.

As such, while these roles may end up merging depending on the company you work for, they carry different responsibilities. However, their core responsibility remains engaging an online community to its fullest potential.

Tasks of an Online Community Manager

Here are some of the basic tasks that an online community manager is responsible for carrying out. Bear in mind that the list of functions is not exhaustive.

Online community manager

Managing a community

Online community managers are responsible for fostering a sense of community around a brand by actively engaging with the audience. As part of their tasks, community managers need to monitor the user engagement level, set community guidelines and perform additional tasks such as identifying influencers in the industry for possible collaboration purposes. In other words, the community managers main job is to optimize the companies digital community for success.

Engage with users directly

One of the responsibilities of an online community manager is looking for loyal followers who like the brand and engage with them. They can do this by leaving comments on their posts or answering their questions on the official profile. Community managers are also able to elevate the quality of online discussions, as well as sustain meaningful relationships with the audience.  Real conversations with the audience can turn into a catalyst for growth in your publications. If you want to learn more you can watch this Webinar: How CBC Creates Real Conversations Below the Fold

Solving problems

If you have built an online community for your brand with clear guidelines, problems will sometimes still occur between members. A community manager will have to declare the final word on issues and take action in case of broken policies. However, a community manager can take advantage of automatic tools such as content moderation platforms that allow the software to perform moderation with oversight from the community manager.

Managing social media

Online community managers need to stay ahead of the competition on social media, looking out for trends within the industry. Further, an online community manager needs to deal with the press and any legal issues regarding the brand’s image online.

Maintaining optimal performance and accuracy of content

Online community managers are also involved in publishing content on the site and driving organic traffic. Therefore, they need to make sure that all the information displayed on the site is relevant and up-to-date and double-check that there are no discrepancies between the website, social media platforms, and the blog in terms of information.

Online Community Manager Salary

The average online community manager’s salary is $44,214. However, if you are an entry-level candidate, you’ll need to expect a lower remuneration starting at $35,000.

Online Community Manager Jobs

Whenever proceeding down a career path, it’s crucial to evaluate future opportunities, which means investigating potential opportunities to grow within the industry.

If you start as an Online Community Manager, you have the option of progressing to a Marketing Manager or Content Strategist with time. However, you can also choose to specialize in online platforms and work as a Digital Marketing Manager. Once you have sufficient experience and knowledge within these roles, you may one day qualify for the role of a Social Media Director.

What Sets a Community Apart From an Ordinary Audience Online?

Generally, media companies know that their success is dependent on their audience. The better they can meet the needs of consumers, the more their audience is likely to grow. 

But having a big audience isn’t the same as having a profitable community. 

“It doesn’t matter how many followers you have online if none of them are engaged,” states Stephanie Burns, who runs an online resource for over 100,000 female entrepreneurs. 

Without engaging audience members, a dedicated community that sustains your business’ long-term growth is just out of arm’s reach. Instead, brands must meet and exceed visitor expectations at every step of their journey to convince them to stick around in the long run. 

So ask yourself the question: Is your brand creating a basic audience or a flourishing, profitable community? 

 

To help you answer the question, here’s everything you need to know to transform your audience into a valuable community.

Defining an Ordinary Audience

When consumers stumble across your content or brand, they typically start as passive audience members — meaning that they will, at most, read your content. There’s no real engagement taking place.

Since passive visitors don’t actively engage with digital properties, they lack long-lasting connections to brands.

With so many competing media companies out there, if you don’t take action to engage and delight your audience with outstanding experiences, they may eventually lose interest altogether in your brand and churn.

An ordinary, unengaged audience holds no long-term loyalty to your brand. This means that an audience can easily break apart as competitors and changes in the world, like the pandemic, come and go. 

A small loyal, engaged audience always holds more power and resilience than a large, passive audience.

The Stirling Woods Group consulting company even reports that the small group of consumers who are the most engaged (approximately 10-15% of readers) generates most of the revenue for media companies. 

For this reason, it’s in your company’s best interest to help turn ordinary audience members into active, revenue-generating community members.

What a Thriving Community Looks Like

A thriving digital community is the main destination for consumers’ content and experiences — not just a quick stop along the way to another platform. 

While an ordinary audience is made up of passive, unengaged content consumers, a digital community is a network of users who actively form meaningful connections with one another. And media companies stand at the center of these relationships.

In other words, a community wants to take part in the experiences and conversations surrounding your company. This sense of connectedness and interest towards a platform is what keeps people coming back and paying for a company’s services.

Yet, profitable communities don’t build themselves. 

“People want more than a transactional relationship with a media outlet that just publishes information at them,” says Sean Dagan Wood, CEO of Positive News. Brands must offer audience members extraordinary experiences to position themselves as trusted resources worth consumer time and money.

How to Turn an Audience into a Loyal Community

Having an unengaged, disconnected audience doesn’t mean that a lucrative community is permanently out of reach. Place your existing audience at the center of exciting experiences and engaging conversations to begin the community-building process. 

This is a particularly useful way to make audience members feel like they’re a valued part of a community.

“As engagement grows, the community gets smarter, faster to respond, more globally available, and generates more value,” reads an article on Harvard Business Review. 

Many companies choose to nurture their communities by offering moderated social spaces on their properties. Others also allow audiences to give feedback and chat directly with content producers to involve them in the content-creation process. 

Another way to improve the user experience is to personalize the visitor experience using first-party data. By understanding what your audience members are interested in and adjusting the experience with your brand to suit their behaviors, they’ll be more likely to engage with your properties. 

Whether you choose to engage your audience through social tools or unique, personalized experiences, you can build up a profitable community by putting your audience at the center of your brand. After all, the time and support you invest in your community will lead to increased attention levels, better on-site engagement, richer user data and long-term loyalty.

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