We have all had times when we get so bombarded by companies trying to sell their products and services using things like emails and banner ads for example, that we tend to start avoiding them altogether by doing things like getting the Adblock extension for Google. In fact, 84% of all of the email traffic was identified as spam in 2013 according to Marketo (Marketo, 2014). This tends to happen because people see that generic advertisements address the public as a whole and therefore may not be relevant to individuals. This is where personalisation comes in, to not only keep current customers engaged but also make new ones too.
(Figure 1. Image courtesy of Softonic – Example of Adblock in use.)
(Figure 2. Personalisation helps reach Point B faster.)
Personalization can be defined as “the process of preparing an individualized communication for a specific person based on stated or implied preferences” (Roberts, 2003). Fayyaz Younas emphasised the need of such personalisation and careful selection to lead to maximum engagement of the audience by describing it as the use of ‘Match.com instead of Craigslist for dating’ which highlights the idea of utilizing segmentation techniques to separate and pinpoint attributes of the target market such as gender and age (Younas, 2017).
(Figure 3. Infographic courtesy of Adweek showing results of segmentation and personalisation.)
It is hard to get personalisation correct
Although higher than 48% of marketers recognise that personalisation can not only increase the ROI but also better the image of the brand, companies are still failing to deliver (Adweek, 2015). This could be because of a number of problems like personalising content based on ‘low-frequency searches’ (Ultimedia, 2016) such as continuously getting ads for baby clothes just because you needed to buy some as a gift that one time months ago!
(Figure 4. Ad from digital marketing companies when doing research for digital marketing assignment!)
Also, some businesses tend to make it obvious when they only show that they care about customers just to make people spend money on their products. It is therefore important to create a relationship similar to a friendship with customers to seem more genuine. An example of this would be to communicate with customers even when they don’t need anything (Return Customer, 2011). For instance, makeup companies could send a free moisturiser with any purchases during the winter months as they are aware of the dry skin conditions that occur during this time. Sephora is an example of this ‘building a friendship’ method as they understand that some customers cannot afford products that are highly admired, so they allow customers to choose 5 free samples of high end and designer products with anything they buy.
(Figure 5. Sephora’s free samples page.)
Issues resulting from different interpretations of personalisation
While the one-to-one interaction between businesses and their customers is thought to be a fundamental objective of marketing (Spiller et al, 2010), there are a number of different definitions of personalisation besides the Roberts one stated above, and therefore different interpretations of the effects of personalisation can arise. For example, Neider believed that hand written notes or letters could be considered unprofessional (Neider et al, 1983).
Another issue is that even though personalisation requires the ‘proper use of demographic, psycho-graphic and/or behavioural data’ (Kaniewska-Sęba, 2014), companies tend to only insert the customers first name in the message and add no further personalisation which indicates mass communication and counteracts the fact that each individual customer is important (Dillman, 1978).
(Figure 6. No personalisation other than my name in the subject message.)
A substantial downside that has been identified is the fine line between an adequate level of personalisation and getting too personal. An example of this is when Disney allowed one of their businesses to let children post their location and full name online in 2011, which was a violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act 1998 (Kingsnorth, 2016), indicating personalisation to an unethical and illegal level.
A report in 2014 suggested that 42% of customers did not mind companies accessing their information as long as they got what they wanted in return (Kingsnorth, 2016). However, another study showed that three-quarters of its respondents believed that their every move on the internet was being watched to an uncomfortable degree, which led many of them to refrain from revealing any of their personal information at all (Kaniewska-Sęba, 2014). This could result in a loss of customers as even though they notice the effort businesses are putting in to give people a sense of individuality, they are still sceptical and view this approach as a violation of their privacy.
In summary, it is evident that when a company has discovered the most effective way to use personalisation, they would essentially be sitting on a gold mine. However, a great deal of thought must be put into the methods used to successfully personalise content for individual customers in order to ensure that they didn’t just get off their gold mine and casually walk away! There are a number of factors that if not approached correctly, businesses could be stepping into unwanted grounds that could mean the loss of customers, hence why they need to put time and effort into discovering a comfortable path regarding personalisation in order to achieve the best results for both customers and the business.
References
Dillman, D. A., (1978) Mail and telephone surveys John Wiley & Sons.
Kaniewska-Sęba, A., “Negative Effects of Personalization in Direct Marketing” (2014) International Journal of Arts & Sciences.
Kingsnorth. S., Digital Marketing Strategy: An Integrated Approach to Online Marketing (Kogan Page 2016).
Marketo (2014) ‘How is Personalization Changing the Face of Marketing’ [online]. Available at: https://uk.marketo.com/articles/how-is-personalization-changing-the-face-of-marketing/ (Accessed: 26 February 2017).
Morley, S., (2016) ‘Personalisation – The Good, The Bad and The Downright Creepy’ Ultimedia [online]. Available at: https://www.ultimedia.co.uk/blog/2016/may/personalisation-the-good-the-bad-and-the-downright-creepy/ (Accessed: 26 February 2017).
Morrison, K., (2015) ‘Personalization is a Big Challenge for Digital Marketers (Infographic)’ Adweek [online]. Available at: http://www.adweek.com/sponsored/what-location-intelligence-can-tell-you-during-movie-awards-season/ (Accessed: 26 February 2017).
Neider, L. L., Sugrue, P. K. “Addressing Procedures as a Mail Survey Response Inducement Technique” (1983) Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 11(4), 455-460.
Return Customer (2011) ‘3 Ways to Treat Customers like Friends’ [online]. Available at: http://www.returncustomer.com/3-ways-to-treat-customers-like-friends/ (Accessed: 26 February 2017).
Roberts, M., (2003) Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies Boston, MA: McGrow-Hill.
Softonic (2016) ‘Adblock Plus for Chrome’ [online]. Available at: https://adblock-plus-for-chrome.en.softonic.com/mac (Accessed: 26 February 2017).
Spiller, L., & Baier, M., Contemporary Direct & Interactive Marketing (2nd edn, Pearson 2010)
Younas, F., (2017) ‘The 5 Ws of Modern Marketing: How to Give Every Consumer a Personalized Experience’ Kahuna [online]. Available at: https://www.kahuna.com/blog/the-5-ws-of-modern-marketing-how-to-give-every-consumer-a-personalized-experience/ (Accessed: 26 February 2017).