When marketers and advertisers talk about personalized or one to one marketing, a lot of questions arise as to why we would want to get that close to our customers. Let’s take a look at our daily communications.
We all have friends, co-workers, significant others, and acquaintances in our lives. Our communication style differs between each of these groups. For example, you don’t talk to your co-worker the same way you would talk with your significant other. There are different socially acceptable standards for these interactions, but all have the same underlying features; two-way, progressive communication that’s personalized for each individual. It’s a process of give and take. Every party has a voice and each conversation is different based on the relationship.
Now let’s look at traditional marketing communications. Until recently, marketers and advertisers have participated in forced, one-way communication broadcasting the same message or idea to a mass audience hoping to reach a small percentage of the market — a market that daily turns deafer and deafer to the unsolicited barrage. How can we expect to become a valued partner with our customers if we are forcing a message on them without giving them any voice whatsoever? How can we expect one message to appeal to everyone? The answer is we can’t.
We now have technologies, processes, and understanding that communication between a marketer and a customer needs to be treated like a relationship that we hold in our personal life. We, as marketers, need to communicate based on our past relationship with two-way communication, giving the customer a voice and a say as to what they want the company or brand to fulfill in their life. As the relationship grows, so does the conversation, ever-becoming a more integral part of the customer’s life.
We expect a two-way, personalized, progressive conversation with every relationship in our lives. Why would we try to communicate differently with our customers? Aren’t they a valuable aspect of our success and lives?
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SPURspectives is the blog of Spur Communications, a nationally-recognized, Kansas City-based Interactive Marketing Agency that is leading the industry in customer engagement through individualized, 1:1 multi-channel marketing communications.
SPURspectives is the blog of Spur Communications, a nationally-recognized, Kansas City-based Interactive Marketing Agency that is leading the industry in customer engagement through individualized, 1:1 multi-channel marketing communications.
