When you think of personalized communications, what comes to mind? Possibly something along the lines of “Hi Joe, check out this offer” or “Isn’t New England cold this time of year?”. But what kind of value does this sort of personalization actually provide. With advances in technology and new media, why are we not providing more value through personalization rather than just trying to impress them with our fancy greeting.
Well, we at Magicomm have been thinking a lot about this recently and have worked hard to come up with unique campaigns that go beyond traditional personalization. For example, in a recent campaign we did for Canon USA we wanted to establish each prospects pain points and address their issues in a unique manner. We achieved this through a set of video testimonials that reorganizes itself based on the individuals responsibilities. What we ended up with was the beginning of a conversation that we hope to continue in the free webinars that are a component of the campaign, which includes personalized mailer, purl, responding email, and the videos.
So the more information I have about my prospect the better?
Well not necessarily. You don’t want to scare them away as there is such thing as TOO personal. Instead of talking about how you know where they were last week (creepy), why not instead use that information to write a more appealing call to action.
Now taking this idea of personalization to your every day marketing strategies, wouldn’t it be cool if you could welcome your users to your blog with a customized message based on how they came across your blog. For example, if you know someone found your site through YouTube, why not also ask them to friend you on YouTube and check out the rest of your companies videos. The technology exists, it’s just on us to push it’s limits.
Personalization was fun at first because we could “see our name in lights”. Now it’s time we become more sophisticated with our marketing communications by providing relevant information that is taylored to the receiptants interests. It’s not rocket science … just the next logical step.
Comments
I think you make some good points, Jon.
Another interesting thing to discuss is how this shift to “relevant” personalization, as opposed to “name in lights” personalization, can be subtle and unnoticeable.
A good example of this is the current campaign that we’ve worked together on for Canon. I had a sales rep call me today after receiving the mailer. His first response to me was, “Man, I wish there was more variable data used. I only see a PURL.” At first I laughed a little to myself (knowing the weeks spent developing the variables before the launch). Then, when I showed him all the different variables we actually used, he was shocked that he didn’t realize it while reading. Because the variables were worked subtly into the text itself, he didn’t even realize they were there.
My thoughts are that this form of personalization may even be more effective in driving response rates. I, for one, know that when I get a mailer and can tell where and how things were personalized, I usually quickly lose interest. (I recently received a mailer from Discover about a recent purchase I had made).
Needless to say, it will be interesting to see the results of this campaign given all the different aspects to it.
Nice.
At last people are starting to get it right. Hope you have enough staff as the word gets out!
Now someone will get that exactly the same thing can be done in Print. For products that people will willingly buy. And enough already with chasing advertising that is running away for a medium that is no longer the best for selling stuff.
Print embedded in the web is still a opretty good way of starting a conversation. But how many printers have the focus or attention to maintain a conversation.
I’m going with about 3%.
It always struck me in the early days of variable data printing: OK, we’ve got these great technology which allows you to address each of your customers as individuals. Isn’t that exciting!?!
And the blank look on the printers faces revealed a sad truth that hasn’t much changed: “We know our customer’s names, but not much more than that. What are we supposed to SAY to them?”