{"id":595,"date":"2008-09-24T00:05:09","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T07:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/responsiblemarketing.com\/blog\/?p=595"},"modified":"2025-07-01T15:05:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T22:05:49","slug":"marketing-personalization-tips-and-pitfalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outsourcemarketing.com\/blog\/marketing-personalization-tips-and-pitfalls\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing personalization tips and pitfalls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Personalization has been the marketer’s holy grail for a long time. <\/strong><\/p>\n

From 1998-2002 I instructed the Integrated Marketing Communications course at the University of Washington. The first few years, I used The One-to-One Future<\/a> by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers as one of my textbooks.<\/p>\n

Of course, one of the key messages of the book centered on making messaging more personalized. “Dear Patrick” is way better than “Dear Customer,” after all.<\/p>\n

Permission Marketing<\/a> was another one of my texts. It raised the bar and said that every message you send must be “anticipated, personal<\/em> and relevant.”<\/p>\n

Now, technology has made it easy to personalize email marketing messages, web landing pages, direct mail, and more. Promotional items have been personalized for years, but the options today are mind-boggling.<\/p>\n

Viral online games that you can personalize by uploading your own photos are now mainstream.<\/p>\n

Most consumers prefer personalized messages, and personalization increases open rates, response rates and just about every metric that matters to marketers.<\/p>\n

Should you start personalizing all your marketing messages? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, yes and no.<\/p>\n

Personalization often backfires.<\/strong> My wife’s name is Arden, and I can’t tell you how many pieces of mail she gets calling her “Mr. Arden Byers.”<\/p>\n

Privacy is a concern.<\/strong> Get too personal and consumers get nervous. You’d surely received the mortgage refinance letters that know exactly what you owe? “They know too much about me – that’s creepy,” is a common response. Personally, I get angry.<\/p>\n

Personalized isn’t necessarily personal.<\/strong> Simply inserting someone’s first name after the word “Dear” may not be enough.<\/p>\n

Today, Freddy Nager wrote an interesting post<\/a> regarding the way rock bands, and in the case, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails connects with his fans.<\/p>\n

His comments regarding personalization got my juices flowing and are the inspiration for this post.<\/p>\n

No, the letter doesn\u2019t address me by name, but fans are savvy enough to know that no rock star can personally address millions of fans, so Reznor simply avoids that pretense.<\/p>\n

(Junk mailers take note: just because you use my first name in the salutation doesn\u2019t make me think it\u2019s personal.)<\/p>\n

At the same time, he writes in first person, addresses the reader as \u201cyou,\u201d and speaks to them in a casual, uncensored way.<\/p>\n

Compare that to the emails many of us get from corporations: \u201cDear Freddy, We at Humongoloid Bank Inc. want to thank our customers for another record year\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chew on that for a minute, then tell me, while personalization matters now, how long do you think it will be before consumers get “personalization fatigue?”<\/p>\n

Put another way, how long before marketing personalization becomes so prevalent it becomes irrelevant?<\/p>\n

Comment below to share your thoughts.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to this feed<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Personalization has been the marketer’s holy grail for a long time. From 1998-2002 I instructed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2642],"class_list":{"0":"post-595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-digital-marketing","8":"tag-personalization"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMarketing personalization tips and pitfalls | Outsource Marketing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.outsourcemarketing.com\/blog\/marketing-personalization-tips-and-pitfalls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marketing personalization tips and pitfalls\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Personalization has been the marketer's holy grail for a long time. 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