How We Fail at Personalization 

In today’s highly crowded marketplace, the average consumer is bombarded with 5,000 marketing messages a day. That makes breaking through the white noise almost impossible, especially for new brands. However, the key is to stay in front of your target audience with highly-tailored messaging that immediately resonates with their wants, interests, preferences, and needs. 

And, one of the only proven marketing strategies that work to do this: is personalization.  

With technology emerging to enable marketers to gain a host of information on each consumer, it has become easier to personalize your marketing messages. In 2019 alone, more than 84% of companies increased their marketing spend, specifically on personalization strategies and technology in an effort to expand their consumer reach. 

Plus, with the use of IA technology that “learns” your consumer’s patterns and purchasing behaviors, marketers can also gather troves of consumer data, including both demographic and psychographic profiles.  

But, the question has now become… is too much personalization really driving consumers away? 

Personalized Messages Have a Big “Creep” Factor 

Receiving an email addressed to you by name is one thing, but having ads pop up that list your street name specifically can be extremely off-putting, to say the least. Consumers have been conditioned to provide their names and email address to companies. However, with some marketing analytics systems, pushing the limits of what is acceptable and gaining access to more in-depth insights such as a customer’s economic status, educational level, age, familial status, and race, many consumers are raising red flags to consumer protection agencies.  

With the rise of data privacy regulations and the growing fear of cyberhacking, 78% of consumers are now intentionally restricting what information they share with brands. So, a new age of personalization is likely coming that has less of a “big brother feel” and is instead driven by location-based strategies. 

As geotargeting technology continues to improve and track consumers’ locations, expect consumers’ concerns about marketing personalization to increase. Taking less invasive approaches to personalize your brand marketing by using chatbots on websites or installing automated chat features on social media pages could be the best way to engage consumers and increase sales. The key to moving forward will be in finding the perfect balance between personalization and consumer privacy. 

Are your personalization strategies working? Could they be enhanced without crossing the line? We would love to share our insights with you and provide some little-known strategies that have worked well for a host of brands looking to increase their brand engagement.