It is an established fact that customization sets your brand and company persona apart from the rest of the crowd. Companies like Nike have used customization to take their brands very close to their customers. There are other brands too, like Nutella, which have used this marketing strategy with devastating effects.

Should you be considering customization as a positioning tool, please read this article on factors that make it a viable proposition.

1. Target Market

All marketing starts with defining your market. Who all makes your target audience? Is it women, young adults, kids, moms, athletes, etc.? You can also define your target audience in terms of B2C or B2B segmentation. The former is Business to Consumer while B2B is Business to Business or Trade Marketing. Your customization strategy would depend greatly on this segmentation.

Typically, B2B customization is a more detail-oriented and complex activity. Trade channel partners are very picky when it comes to choosing the right designs for their shops, etc. In contrast, B2C customization is a simpler process.

2. Type of Personalization

In this factor, you have a range of options to choose from. These options are:

  • Text only- Should your messaging contain only text?
  • Image only- Should your messaging have pictures only?
  • Text and Image?
  • Blank canvas
  • Customized images

Please note that these product design ideas are prescriptive in nature. You may have your own product design ideas in mind for customization.

3. Budget

An important thing to consider is budgeting. While customization is indeed a low budget activity, your exercise should check whether this activity is financially prudent or not. For example, if you aim to sell 300, 0000 units of T-Shirts at a cover price of $2, but your cost of production is just $1.75, we don’t think you are getting enough profits. Click here to get even more insights on what customization means for your brand.

Please dive deep into your budgeting activity. It is not just the cost of production you should consider; you also need to take care of other costs as well. Some of these costs are:

  • Media and promotion costs
  • Distribution costs

4. Seasonality or the When factor

When should your customization activity hit the ground? It is all about timing. If you are targeting cricket lovers in Australia, your customer-contact activity should hit the peak a few days before the cricket finals or semis.

If you are targeting the holiday season, your customization should hit its peak just a few days before your ‘potential’ customers begin buying their hotel or airline tickets. In short, timing is everything.

5. A/B testing

Before ruling out your customization strategy, please test in a sample market. This is called A/B testing, and it lets you know any shortcomings in your customization strategy.

6. Finding your consumers

Okay, so far, we have clicked the right boxes on customization. Now, how about finding your customers? The key to implementing a successful customization strategy is to find the right customers and in the right numbers. There are several ways of finding your buyers- email outreach, social media, direct marketing, etc. Please consider the most cost-effective customer acquisition strategy before your customization strategy kicks in.

7. Feedback and Control

Now that you have rolled out your customization strategy, how about finding its effectiveness? Do you have a feedback mechanism that fills you in about the weaknesses of this strategy? Is this mechanism real-time or does it deliver answers after a short time lag? How can you quickly implement the changes even while your customization strategy is underway?