The Relevance of Information
By Skip Henk on September 6th, 2008
Over the last 12-24 months in presentations, articles and blogs I have participated regarding Transpromo I have chimed in about the “relevance” of information, which certainly seems to draw concurrence from those who have responded.
But, Heidi brings up a good point with regards to the “attitude” towards the statement by the recipient based on content and timing. The data within a document sets the attitude whether it be credit card or 401 statement.
If the credit card balance is zero, maybe happiness and time to spend. If the balance is close to the credit line, maybe stress. If payment was late and there are late fees maybe frustration or even anger. 401K goes up or goes down, happiness or frustration.
Even the most sophisticated Transpromo application is relevance based on assumptions. Not emotion, nor state of mind. It would be interesting to quantify different Transpromo ads against the content.
How powerful would it be if we could create a “personal virtual relationship” with customers we most likely will never meet by providing timely, relevant “what’s in it for them” information. Not a “day to day” relationship but one that reflects their interests, hobbies, future plans, from their eyes, not our assumptions. Kind of an ongoing “opt-in” dialogue. A relationship based on trust and boundaries that they establish.
Web and print technology along with trends in human behavior enable this and it will come …. but that will be the next buzzword.
Hint to my cell phone company …. send me a discount coupon for my birthday! (You know when it is.) I need a new phone, mine is two years old. (you know that too). I will be in a good mood. (because I just told you) Don’t tell anyone else. (I don’t want to receive 1,000 emails !)
September 6th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Relevance is too often treated as something that we can only incorporate with a lot more data and modeling. But as with your birthday example, most companies already have enough information to make an order of magnitude leap in this area without even going beyond the most basic info. Once we think of campaigns less as single events and more as rules that apply to customer events and conditions, the rest follows naturally.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Skip and Justin,
Good points.
Just want to add two cents.. I found the following over at TranspromoLive.
“When the customer starts noticing their bills now include promotions and upgrades, they will expect each statement to try to sell them something. the whole point of transpromo is delivering targeted and timely promotions to the customer to show an understanding of their needs.”
(here’s the link to the full post at http://www.transpromo-live.com/?p=49 )
What I get from that is the customer doesn’t want to know that the company “cares about them”. Nobody is going to believe that. But they do value if you know who they are and understand what they need and can show them, not tell them.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Transpromo is different because it is something that the recipient MUST read: it’s a bill, and the content is heavily scrutinized. At the very least, transpromo softens the blow when you get a bill and see the final amount owing. I remember I used to have a cell phone company include a coupon for a free admission to a movie theater every month – ironically, I would open the bill just because I knew I was getting a coupon!
I love the personalization thing. I have been working on a project for licensed purl software that delivers personalized URLS and personalized landing pages. Perhaps you or your readers would be interested in giving it a try! It’s a free download:
http://www.DynamicURLS.com
Code in unencrypted, so I’d be very interested in any feedback anyone might have for the program! Genuinely not trying to create link spam here so forgive me if it seems that way. Really looking for feedback.