Getting Personal
As I'm writing this at the turn of the year, I thought I should have a go at predicting what might happen in the direct marketing world, if not in this year, perhaps in years to come. I've also been thinking about the relationships that organisations have with customers and that as the process becomes more automated, it becomes less personal which was never the intention when we embarked on customer relationship management. So here goes.
I remember that when computer personalisation first started, all that could be managed was the printing of names like this in capital letters:
It was simple, but had a wonderful effect on response rates and over the past thirty years personalisation has become increasingly sophisticated, not just with typefaces but also with the use of personal information that companies have collected from transactions or purchased from government or other organisations. This has been analysed and profiled in an attempt to make more appropriate offers to customers and prospects.
But in a few years I think that using data like this will seem as laughingly outdated as the upper case personalisation example above. This is not just because computing power has increased, but because there is so much more information out there on the world wide web that can be collected about individuals.
USING THE WEB TO GET MORE PERSONAL
Make a search in Google and in a fraction of a second eight billion web pages are searched. Two billion images are also searched, so suddenly you can find out a lot about Per Anders and see a photo of him. And this is true for an increasing number of people who have left a trail of their presence on the web. For example, search my name and you'll find that I have an interest in contemporary African Music and that my music reviews are quoted on web sites. Suddenly you see a different Ian Dewar with this insight into my life.
Loads more information can be discovered with clever searches. You can search the book, music and DVD reviews at Amazon and perhaps discover something about people's interests and views. There are web sites and forums where people have expressed views about holiday destinations, restaurants, electrical products and the cars they drive.
Take a look at genealogy sites and you can search family trees and see the relationships people have and the names of their partner and children. You can search sites that reunite school and work friends and find out about their education and employment history.
Start searching postcodes, house and telephone numbers and you'll find out even more about a persons lifestyle and get an insight into their wealth.
MUCH BETTER THAN A ONE DIMENSIONAL VIEW
Taken all together, this information would enable you to get a much better idea about what your customers are like and how you should be talking to them. For many organisations, this would be far richer than the simple transactional data that gives a one-dimensional view of the customer, especially if their contact with customers is only occasional.
It only takes a little time to learn how to do these complex searches that return fewer, smarter and more relevant results than the general web searches that most people make. Then it's just a matter of automating these and searching robotically across the web so that customer data can be enriched beyond anything available in 2006. And as every day passes the volume of data that can be searched grows and with it the ability to build an enhanced customer view.
DIRECT MARKETING SHOULDN'T BE A LOTTERY
If you're anything like me, you probably find that over 90% of the direct mail or Email you receive is part of some sort of lottery that organisations play when they mail, not minding what volume they mail as long as they get the tiny response they need to stay in business. It's not just annoying to receive these communications, but over time they diminish the impression of the brands that send it. As an industry, we should be mailing less by working harder to make offers more personal and appropriate to people that will value the communication.
So I look forward to Google, or anyone else who wants to steal this idea, sending their robots across the web and collecting useful data to write to you and I more meaningfully. Then I could look forward to opening my mail again and seeing that I'd been sent an offer of African music or an old malt whisky.
I remember that when computer personalisation first started, all that could be managed was the printing of names like this in capital letters:
DEAR PER ANDERS PRABERT
It was simple, but had a wonderful effect on response rates and over the past thirty years personalisation has become increasingly sophisticated, not just with typefaces but also with the use of personal information that companies have collected from transactions or purchased from government or other organisations. This has been analysed and profiled in an attempt to make more appropriate offers to customers and prospects.
But in a few years I think that using data like this will seem as laughingly outdated as the upper case personalisation example above. This is not just because computing power has increased, but because there is so much more information out there on the world wide web that can be collected about individuals.
USING THE WEB TO GET MORE PERSONAL
Make a search in Google and in a fraction of a second eight billion web pages are searched. Two billion images are also searched, so suddenly you can find out a lot about Per Anders and see a photo of him. And this is true for an increasing number of people who have left a trail of their presence on the web. For example, search my name and you'll find that I have an interest in contemporary African Music and that my music reviews are quoted on web sites. Suddenly you see a different Ian Dewar with this insight into my life.
Loads more information can be discovered with clever searches. You can search the book, music and DVD reviews at Amazon and perhaps discover something about people's interests and views. There are web sites and forums where people have expressed views about holiday destinations, restaurants, electrical products and the cars they drive.
Take a look at genealogy sites and you can search family trees and see the relationships people have and the names of their partner and children. You can search sites that reunite school and work friends and find out about their education and employment history.
Start searching postcodes, house and telephone numbers and you'll find out even more about a persons lifestyle and get an insight into their wealth.
MUCH BETTER THAN A ONE DIMENSIONAL VIEW
Taken all together, this information would enable you to get a much better idea about what your customers are like and how you should be talking to them. For many organisations, this would be far richer than the simple transactional data that gives a one-dimensional view of the customer, especially if their contact with customers is only occasional.
It only takes a little time to learn how to do these complex searches that return fewer, smarter and more relevant results than the general web searches that most people make. Then it's just a matter of automating these and searching robotically across the web so that customer data can be enriched beyond anything available in 2006. And as every day passes the volume of data that can be searched grows and with it the ability to build an enhanced customer view.
DIRECT MARKETING SHOULDN'T BE A LOTTERY
If you're anything like me, you probably find that over 90% of the direct mail or Email you receive is part of some sort of lottery that organisations play when they mail, not minding what volume they mail as long as they get the tiny response they need to stay in business. It's not just annoying to receive these communications, but over time they diminish the impression of the brands that send it. As an industry, we should be mailing less by working harder to make offers more personal and appropriate to people that will value the communication.
So I look forward to Google, or anyone else who wants to steal this idea, sending their robots across the web and collecting useful data to write to you and I more meaningfully. Then I could look forward to opening my mail again and seeing that I'd been sent an offer of African music or an old malt whisky.
posted by Ian at 15:39
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