Getting personal has real rewards
Marketers must treat targets as individuals
It's a commonly accepted maxim that prospects and customers alike have always responded to communications that are both intimate and relevant. But how guilty are we as marketers of not treating individuals differently; uniquely even?
To use an analogy, if you go into your local restaurant and the staff remembers your name, your favourite table in the restaurant, your penchant for a particular wine and warns you which specials to avoid because of your nut allergy, you cannot fail to be impressed. And as a result, as customers, we tend to go back. Sure it helps the food is good and it's a stone's throw away from home; but in truth we all enjoy the personal touch and being made to feel different or "special". Yet how many brands or campaigns genuinely deliver this personal experience? In today's data-driven, integrated world, the "local restaurant remembering your name and preferences" analogy is absolutely appropriate and it's crucial that brands take heed whether they're talking to prospects or customers.
In simple terms, when we don't know a person we have to find out what motivates them and learn what their attitudes are, allowing us to communicate with them accordingly. But when we do know a person - we have to speak to them with the knowledge and insight that we have to hand so that our communications are of consummate relevance and intimacy at all times.
With prospects it's imperative that brands are effective with behavioural targeting. This goes a step further than segmentation and demographic targeting, and allows advertisers to monitor the behaviour of users and have advertising react according to their behaviour. Facebook is particularly effective at making this work because it provides the end user with content that is more relevant to them as an individual. It also enables the agency to give its clients a better return on investment on its ad-spend and to achieve better results enabling them to reinvest. Most importantly, it also allows us all to learn more about audience behaviour - trends, patterns and responses via multiple segments all at once.
With customers, personalisation is again key and this is leveraged through effective loyalty and customer relationship management - getting this right can increase the profitability of each individual customer by an inexorably high amount. When we're working with our clients, whether it's Virgin Atlantic, Shell or T-Mobile to name just a few, our CRM engagement goes beyond personalisation by name alone, and it's only by working towards individual preferences that they yield a demonstrable and exponential return on investment.
It doesn't matter what sector a marketer is immersed in because to communicate effectively with both prospects and customers requires giving individuals the personal attention they truly deserve. You often hear marketers complaining of this approach being "too hard" or "too expensive" - what absolute rubbish. And frankly anyone who suggests otherwise is either kidding themselves or just being plain lazy.
Richard Perry is Executive Vice-President of Gyro International
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