For more than 300 days in 2017, signals were sent every time you and I and everyone else clicked or tapped.
We told marketers of our extraordinary interest in some things and our indifference in others.
Businesses knew – or should’ve known – every dollar that we spent with them with granular information that gave them daypart, offer acted upon, and purchase pattern, among other particulars.
Then the holiday shopping season came and for the most part we were treated by businesses as equals. The channels and screens were different from our youth, but the marketing was unquestionably mass as if we were still enthralled by the Ed Sullivan Show.
Nothing personal.
As I wrote in The Art of Mobile Persuasion, “I’ve never, ever had a meatball sandwich from your quick-service restaurant. You, Mr. or Ms. marketer, know, or should know, from my purchase history that my diet is vegetarian. Why am I still getting those damn meatball ads?”
If you wonder if it matters, 64 percent of consumers want personalized offers from retail brands, Salesforce says.
According to McKinsey, personalization can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50 percent, lift revenues by 5-15 percent and increase marketing spend efficiency by 10-30 percent.
The stakes are high when you factor in loyalty programs. Consumers expect you to show them that you know them.
Yet in the often-cited Bond Brand Loyalty survey http://info.bondbrandloyalty.com/2017-loyalty-report, we learned that only 22 percent feel very satisfied with the level of personalization they experience with a loyalty program. Incredibly, that is down from 28 percent in 2015.
No one said that this personalization stuff is easy. As Gartner analyst Noah Elkin told me in an interview for an upcoming podcast episode, it is a crawl, walk, run process for most marketers who at best are implementing it in one channel.
The most egregious disconnect for me in the holiday season was after my wife and I were met with a dirty sock, used robe, and rumpled and unclean sheets upon check-in at the Magnolia Hotel in Denver.
Despite voicing our displeasure to three employees, our e-mailed bill the next morning came with this opening -- We hope you have enjoyed your stay with us.
To be sure, some brands noticeably stood out with personalization efforts (colleagues and others did an admirable job online and in mobile apps, for instance).
The most memorable one, again in the travel industry, came when the Kimpton Hotel Wilshire reached out to my wife to ask her if she would like to send along a photo of a loved one, pet or happy memory so it could be framed and set on the nightstand before she arrived.
In 2018, nothing personal just ain’t good enough.
If you are up for it, let’s take this improvement road together.
I’ll offer insights, actionable lessons, case studies and interviews in this space, on my The Art of Mobile Persuasion podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/art-mobile-persuasion-podcast/id1156481550?mt=2, and @jeffhasen on Twitter. Expect a lot of it.
Your part of the deal? You’ll read, listen, engage, and maybe even catch my attention – and more of my business and loyalty – with a personalized ad, email or promoted tweet that speaks to me.
Thanks for being here. Happy New Year.
