Go Blazers – putting the ‘personal’ back in marketing

After a couple of years of email blasting hell, I think consumers (and we’re all consumers in one form or the other) are going back to the old fashioned notion of relationships: where a company that wants to sell you its products takes some time and effort to find out something about you and makes its message and communications relevant to you, your likes and dislikes and the issues that keep you awake at night. Behind it is the simple notion that we all would prefer to deal with people ‘just like us’ who share our particular likes and passions, or at least understand why it’s important to you whether the Blazers will make the playoffs this upcoming season.

In that line I’m a great fan of using this kind of information to enhance one-to-one marketing communications: and lots of CRM systems today have the ability to record a client or prospect’s hobbies or interests. Certainly there’s lot of data out there about how a more personalized approach in marketing enhances results, and I think we could still do a lot more to make our communications feel really personal and relevant to every individual. It’s what good sales people have been doing for years - typically carrying it around in their heads: a prospect’s favorite hobby, or the college they attended and whose team they never miss. This information can be very useful in marketing/sales campaigns once you get past the initial challenge of capturing it and getting it in your CRM system.

Great, so now that you know that your contact likes golf, what can you do with this information other than make small talk? One idea is to try and incorporate your prospect’s interests in the subject lines of marketing communications. For example, instead of sending out a webinar invitation with a standard/generic subject line like- “10 Ways to Increase Your Bottom Line”, you might use a header/subject line like “10 Great Approach Shots to increase the Bottom Line” to the 20% of your database that you know have an interest in golf. Or let’s say that you have identified that 15 % of your contacts like baseball. They would be more likely to respond to the header, “10 Ways to Knock Your Bottom Line into the Upper Deck.” Granted, these personal touches will need a little extra care, but you are going to see an uptick in performance. Your prospects and clients know that you’re trying… and they might even remember that you’re also a fan of their favorite team. And who could resist that?

Vincent Hurst
Business Development
Dunthorpe Marketing Group