• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, December 19, 2019

Ask a bunch of retailers what their goals are in 2020, and here’s what you get:

The top one is increasing email revenue. And the sixth one is scaling email personalization, according to Survey: 2020 Retail Trends, a study by Bluecore.

In between are growing repeat purchase rates, driving more site traffic and preserving margins. 

The study focuses largely on personalization, and here, too, email is the top priority: 57% say they want to increase the percentage of emails tailored specifically to individual customers from 10% to 30%.

The other goals, which are much lower in the chain, are:

Increasing the use of dynamic blocks within an email to improve relevance for individual customers (e.g. personalizing products, offers, content within an email — 14% 

Managing the frequency at which customers receive emails an the emails they do/don’t receive at the individual level — 10%

Adjusting the channel mix for marketing communications based on individual customer preference — 14%

Creating a more relevant onsite experience for individual customers (e.g. targeted pop-ups, individual product recommendation onsite) — 5%

 Of course, companies face difficulties in some areas. They include:

• Connecting customer, behavior and product data to build audiences for targeted campaigns based on individual shoppers’ product interests at unique points in time — 25% 
• Gaining buy-in across teams and departments for handing over more decision-making to technology — 50%
• Scaling the use of dynamic recommendations and content across campaigns efficiently — 17% 
• Dynamically adjusting email frequency and timing based on individual customer preferences — 4% 

Happily, nobody cites “taking action on data in email and other channels to execute personalized campaigns and make those experiences seamless as shoppers move from one channel to the next.”

But data remains a challenge, and in a slightly contradictory finding, a minority is able to easily access data.  Here’s how the respondents describe their capabilities:

• Accessing data remains challenging and I cannot take action with the data I do end up getting — 35% 
• I can access data, but it takes time and technical support, and effectively taking action with it is challenging — 30%
• I can easily access data without technical support but effectively taking action with it remains challenging — 26%
• I can easily access and effectively take action using data in campaigns across channels without technical support — 9% 

Bluecore, a provider of personalization services to retailers, surveyed almost 200 marketers at its Annual Bluecore Summit.