Personalization is Passé

I’m sure many of us know that personalization is just one of the basic things a marketer needs to grasp (for both B2B and B2C) in the past 5 years. Think of direct mails, segmented marketing, eDMs with <first name> in your HTML.

Now, let’s think ahead.

Relevance is the new important methodology that should be integrated in every marketer’s strategy and communication. Why?

1. Just by inserting his or her <first name> is not going to make the sale.
2. Sending omni-channel marketing in platforms that is highly used by the target audience isn’t sufficient.
3. Writing nicely (and grammatically correctly) would not be as effective as compared to you speaking in the buyer’s persona. Language localisation is imperative.
4. Sending an amazing discount code might not be opened if your audience is literally sleeping. (a.k.a. sending at the right time is important)
5. The majority of your audience doesn’t care if some earthquake is going to happen in Beijing tomorrow, because he is flying off to Paris. This isn’t just about geo-tagging or a clean database, it’s about the sad and real psychological selfish tendencies of human not caring unless it’s personal & cause a direct impact.

I’m sure others can add on to the list above, but I hope the point was clear.

How then can we tackle and improve personalization to relevance?

1. Write in your buyer persona’s language
   Sample A: 13-year old teen talks Likez Diz yo
   Sample B: 48-year old C-level suit needs a justifying whitepaper/case study report to make purchase decision
2. Send using the right channel
   I like social media, although I know there’s a difficulty to tie ROI for it now and many people are still fighting to get management buy in. But honestly if it doesn’t work for B2B companies to get any sales or qualified leads, I’d have to rely on other channels which is more effective.
3. Give them value & utility
   This is why the trend of inbound marketing is starting to increase. Many years ago it is companies who select their buyers. Now, the buyer power has significantly increased (especially with open economy and disruptive unicorns) and what they want is something useful (to solve their problem in consuming, or searching, or whatever that helps them to perform better in their job)
4. Create positive customer experience (CX)
   Think of your favourite brand in the next 60 secs. Those that were in your top-of-mind were the ones that had the most positive experience. After attending Oracle CX Event last week in Singapore, I absolutely agree with Collin Shaw and Brian J. Curran that CX is about creating more positive brand experiences and memories to increase brand value and advocacy.
5. Content is still king
   A 25-year-old introverted female who loves to go to the museums and read, is not interested to attend a large crowd at an F1 Race. I rest my case.