I’m of the opinion that more often than not individuals want to feel a connection with whom or what they come in contact or interact with. People like to feel that they don’t need to look too far or hard to get something that seems tailor made to their needs. Personalized marketing to a great extent satisfies this feeling; it provides a form of one to one marketing for potential and existing customers. Personalized marketing can be said to be marketing of a unique product for each customer.
Personalized marketing has existed in various forms of media for a long time however it has become even more common and pronounced in online media and mobile communications. Many companies use online communication tools, social networking sites and emails to obtain and retain customer information for use in creating unique product offerings suited to the individual customer. Personalized marketing can also be referred to as one to one marketing which is made up of four steps in order to be effective. These are: identify, differentiate, interact and customize.
The importance of personalization in marketing cannot be overemphasised, knowing what the customer wants can save a company or organisation from putting out products that might not be well received. Information gathered on possible customers and their wants can aid the company compute more accurate sales projections and finally the interaction with customers encourages brand loyalty and promotes word of mouth marketing especially on social websites like Facebook. In his blog post on January 24, 2011, Barry Byers categorically stated that “it is the age of personalized marketing, especially digital marketing”. His statement alludes to the fact that personalized marketing is of extreme importance to all marketers. “The Internet has made it easier than ever for brands to know who people are, what they like, what they don't, and how they want to be communicated with “(Chris Lee, New media Knowledge, July 2011)
Some common examples of personalized marketing in organisations can be seen with Dell computers which has the option to interact with an agent online as well as personalize your computer by customizing it according to your taste. Some organisations like the Bank of America have online surveys which pop up after you have interacted with the online agent.
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However, one of the more interesting and quite subtle information gathering by an organisation can be seen in such supermarket chains like Tesco which offers its customers a club card which is meant to reward customers with points for each purchase that can be redeemed on future purchases but also serve as a means of tracking customer purchasing preferences and can form an excellent database to market what the customer wants and needs.
Organisations such as Tesco and Dell utilized one-to-one marketing by first of all identifying the customer’s preferences, details and information as entered into the customer’s account. Then they differentiate and distinguish the customers into segments, interact with the customer and finally customize and personalize the products or offerings.
There are however some limitations and disadvantages to personalized marketing as customer tastes and trends are dynamic and change very frequently but the pros definitely exceed the cons and that why personalized marketing has come to stay....... at least till the next big thing comes up.
References
References
Manchester Business School, New Media Marketing, [MBS] 2011.
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