Organisations are becoming more and more aware of the benefits of personalising and tailoring communication to their customers, particularly emails (Hoffman and Novak, 1996; Postma and Brokke, 2002). With the vast amounts of personal data collected on consumers it can be difficult to know what information to use to personalise the emails. Include too much and you risk becoming creepy; a stalker-like company which could then have the adverse effect and distance the customer from you (White et al., 2006). So the key is to strike a balance, but how?
I receive many emails with a personalised greeting from “Hello Lauren” such as the email from EE below:
To sometimes more formal personalisations such as that from Accu-Chek who used “Dear Ms Leahy”, shown in the email below:
Both of these emails caught my attention but the initial personalised greeting lead me to believe that the remainder of the email would be specific to my needs or characteristics based on the information I’d provided them in the past be that knowingly or inadvertently. However, although the personalisation captured my attention it is important to recognise that it was not this alone. There were other factors involved such as the promotions and offers used to hook me in, but these are separate areas in themselves. So from this we can establish that using a name/personalised greeting can contribute to better email engagement, particularly if the rest of the email has been subtly personalised to the consumer’s taste preferences (White et al, 2006).
If the personalisation becomes too obvious or too narrow i.e. if the email highlights that the organisation has a vast amount of detailed information on the consumer, including their buying habits, behaviours etc. this could lead to the consumer backing away from the organisation adversely impacting engagement and sales (White et al, 2006). This may project a “big brother” style of monitoring and data collection to the consumer. Although this does happen most of the time, making the consumer crudely aware of this may make them reluctant to provide any further information thus severing ties (which highlights an ethical consideration for the organisation in how transparent they are with how they obtain and use consumer data, but that’s a separate issue).
The example from EE shows how the personal information such as the age and sex of the consumer can help in subtly tailoring the communication without it being intrusive; offering discounts to activities which would be more common amongst younger people such as concerts, shows and the latest gadgets. Similarly Accu-Chek have provided a very specific meter based on the treatment/medication I told them I use and type of diabetes I told them I have (although I do not have diabetes this was done for research purposes with the permission of Accu-Chek). The content which was tailored to the consumer’s needs was not done so in an obvious way which encouraged my engagement and interest (White et al, 2006), particularly whereby in the email it demonstrates how the product is useful and convenient in meeting the testing preferences I informed them about.
The other factor to remember is that the information is only as good as that provided by the consumer, if they type their name incorrectly, you’ll send an email with their name typed incorrectly which can reflect poorly on the organisation, as well as adversely affecting engagement. Similarly data can date very quickly (not in the Tinder kind of way); if for example Miss Smith became Mrs Thomas in a short space of time, although they haven’t notified you of this it can still cause offense if you use the incorrect name, this is worse so if the person you’re contacting is deceased. As such data cleansing exercises are encouraged as well as sense checks on the information held, to flag potential problems like this and to ensure that the personalised data is accurate (Davey, 2014).
So overall, personalisation is good when it is subtle, discreet and accurate. Personalisation alone isn’t the key to engagement though, remember to include hooks such as offers and rewards to attract consumer interest, which I will consider exploring in more detail in future blogs.
References
Hoffman, D., Novak, T. (1996) ‘Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-Mediated Environments: Conceptual Foundations’. Journal of Marketing. Vol. 60, No. 3, P50-68.
Postma, O., Brokke, M. (2002) ‘Personalisation in practice: The proven effects of personalisation.’ Journal of Database Marketing. Vol. 9, No. 2, P137-142.
White, T., Zahay, D., ThorbjØrnsen, H., Shavitt, S. (2006) Getting too personal: Reactance to highly personalised email solicitations. Marketing Letters. Vol. 19, No. 1, P39.
Davey, N. (2014) Personalised marketing: The wrongs, the rights and the recommendations. [Online] <http://bit.ly/1uhuef5> [accessed 8th April 2015].