One to One Marketing, Mom and Pop Style
Over the decades, as businesses have grown, the Mom and Pop style of running a business suffered, and so nostalgia has grown over the years for those “better days”. Wouldn’t it be nice if we walked into a store and knew the proprietor, and they knew us? We would call each other by name (our first names) and ask about the kids or the spouse or the job or the car we’ve been restoring in our garage.
We long for the days when we weren’t accosted by a stranger the second we walked into the furniture store, trying to sell us what they think, from a moments glance, might be the thing we want—or even worse, the thing they get the most commission for.
Most of us haven’t even experienced these “good old days”, but we can see the appeal and even develop a longing just the same.
Businesses everywhere are using technology to try to bring back the “mom and pop” feel to their businesses. Many, though, do it wrong.
Here is a list of considerations that are a must when trying to personalize your marketing and your business.
- Your customer expects you to know certain things about them, so you SHOULD use these things to personalize your online and printed communications with them. Seamlessly calling your customer by name, referring to past purchases, referring to shared events (like a dentist’s reminder for an appointment), etc.
- Your customer will get creeped out if you demonstrate that you have information they never gave you. If you can buy demographic information, don’t tell your customer that you know their income, how many kids they have, or anything else.
Be subtle when you use demographic data—like tailoring the images and/or text to match age, gender, and other demographic attributes. - Use what you know about your customer to help THEM, not yourself. The secret here is that if you do this, it will help your business far more than any other approach.
- Know your data. It sounds cold and impersonal, but one of the best ways to get to know your customer is to get to know your data. What products are popular? What types of customers are buying which types of products? The trick is, when you look at your data, try very hard to see the people that gave you that data.
