You arrive at a hotel and the TV screen greets you by name. You receive an email addressed to you containing more information about something you clicked on in your web browser. You visit a website and it welcomes you back. Creepy? Perhaps… or is it actually just exceptional customer service?

The truth is, as consumers of information in this modern digital age, we crave personalization. One study attributes this preference for personalized experiences to two things: desire for control and information overload. With so much information available at the click of a mouse, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and overloaded nowadays, which has made a major contribution to one of the latest trends and best practices when it comes to building a website: personalization.

Consumers are fed up with irrelevant content on websites they frequent. They’re demanding more personalized experiences online, and to make this happen, marketers and websites have to get smarter. So what does this entail? A personalized website has the capability to remember its visitors. Not only that, but it is able to collect their information and slowly track their preferences in a way that allows the website to greet them by name and then offer them specific suggestions to click-through to content that would be of interest to them.

For companies engaged in e-commerce, personalization has already become essential. But even supermarket chains have jumped ahead to overhaul their websites to deliver this functionality. Raley’s recently announced that incorporating personalization into their website is going to help them better serve their customers and Food Lion’s new website, created using customer feedback, will provide a personalized dashboard and helpful tools for shoppers.

So don’t brush aside personalization as something that’s only important for e-commerce. As we move into 2016, this trend, like mobile optimization in previous years, will soon become the norm for companies to have a relevant digital presence. Here are 8 reasons why you can’t ignore personalization for 2016:

• Contacts/customers who are provided with personalized content produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities. (Source: DemandGen)
• A personalized website can provide your visitors with new content that it knows they have not viewed yet, versus showing them the exact same thing every time they visit.
• Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. (Source: Aberdeen)
• Personalization allows marketers to send emails only to the contacts that they know are interested in a specific topic, versus sending every email to their entire list.
• 77% of marketers believe that real-time personalization is crucial. (Source: Neolane & DMA)
• 66% of marketers cite improved business performance and customer experience as the main driver for personalization. (Source: Salesforce)
• A huge part of becoming a successful marketer is knowing your audience. Personalization forces you to dig deep and get to know your audience in order to create custom content that will appeal to them.
• 62% of adults under 34 are willing to share their location for more relevant content. (Source: jwire)

As you’re thinking about your website in 2016, remember this: relevancy is key. Your audience, whether they are produce buyers or consumers who love fresh food, are more inclined to content that speaks directly to their needs and addresses their problems. In 2016 and beyond, marketers will need to get more strategic about creating websites that specifically address the needs of the audiences they want to attract, and personalization can play a big role in this effort.

If you already know that your company will need to invest in a new website for 2016, click below to see how we can help you bring it to life!