Personalized Email From "A Friend"

If you didn't get this, you should see it. It may be personalization run amok, but it's always nice to be thanked!

http://my.barackobama.com/holiday

There is one particularly interesting thing about it. They are pushing sharing, but they appear to have controlled it carefully. I tried sending it to BlogReaders--I thought that would be a nice touch; when that didn't work, I used the word Reader, hoping it would recognize that as a given name. No luck--in both cases, it came back personalized to Friend. When I send it to Robert, it recognized a real name and personalized. Nice filter!

Don't give them credit for thinking this up, however. In March 2008 I wrote about a video sent to a student during the Dutch political campaign. Not as elaborate, but perhaps a bit funnier. Last fall another student ran the (winning) campaign for the Conservative Party in Norway using a lot of electronic and social media.

The key is that both countries have election laws that permit only a minimal amount of money to be spent (and a short time in which to spend it). What a good idea! Wish I believed it could ever happen here!!!

I'll see you early in the new year. Let me add my wishes to those of the famous friend for a wonderful holiday season for all!!!

Does Behavioral Tracking Threaten Consumer Privacy?

According to a recent study by researchers at the Universities of Pennsylvania and California at Berkeley and sponsored by the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, consumers think it does! Whatever marketers themselves think, these opinions threaten behavioral advertising, and we should take them seriously.

The New York Times had an excellent article when the report was published. It’s an important report, and I’d encourage you to use the link in the Times article and download it to read the entire thing. You will find careful methodology and a carefully chosen, if not huge, sample.

The findings are what’s most important, and here are two of the key ones:

• Even when they are told that the act of following them on websites will take place anonymously, Americans’ aversion to it remains: 68% “definitely” would not allow it, and 19% “probably” would not allow it.

• Americans mistakenly believe that current government laws restrict companies from selling wide-ranging data about them. When asked true-false questions about companies’ rights to share and sell information about their activities online and off, respondents on average answer only 1.5 of online laws and 1.7 of the 4 offline laws [questions] correctly because they falsely assume government regulations prohibit the sale of data. (pp. 3 & 4)

I think the incorrect beliefs about government regulations contribute to the aversion problem; it’s another instance of people feeling duped when they find out the truth. This is a societal problem, not a problem for any one business. Still, individual businesses can be open and honest about their own activities, building trust as they do so.

Both these issues are important but let me present just one chart on aversion to behavioral tracking with the two columns you need to compare highlighted.
First, note that the respondents are more willing to allow tracking when it produces discount offers they want. We’ve been seeing a lot lately about how intensively consumers are using the web to look for promotions and discounts, so that makes sense.

Second, lower table, when the question includes specifics about the information used to tailor the ads, discounts and news, the percentage of people willing to accept goes down—a little less for discounts, but they all go down. Look further; when information is brought in from other websites (the essence of behavioral advertising) or from offline, the willingness to accept plummets.

The full report also had a breakdown by age segment. Younger people are more willing to accept the tailored offers than older ones, but there’s not as much difference as I expected. And younger people show the same pattern of being less willing to accept tailored offers when the source of information is specified.

This is disturbing to the Internet marketer, and there is no easy solution. There have been a few meager efforts by coalitions of businesses and trade groups to better inform users about the nature and benefits of collecting and using consumer data and the differences between anonymous and identified data. The efforts appear to have been half-hearted and it’s clear that they had little impact.

Worse, that’s the only real solution I can think of. Do you have any better ideas???

In the meantime, keep building your trusted brand!

McKinsey on Web 2.0 Success

For a long time I’ve worked with McKinsey consultants on a non-profit board. I admire their work and I admire the content of the McKinsey Quarterly. When I first started reading it, you

either had to be a customer or to know someone in order to get access to it. It has interested me to watch as they moved onto the web and gradually made more valuable content available there. I get their emails so I don’t miss anything.

Several days ago I got a newsletter and was immediately attracted to “Six Ways to Make Web 2.0 Work.” The article is a summary of what they’ve learned from numerous surveys of middle and top level managers who are finding their way into the Web 2.0 economy. They make six main points about how to make Web 2.0 initiatives work in your organization and, in the article itself, they give examples of each. They are worth reading. Here are the six rules for success:

1. The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top.
2. The best uses come from users—but they require help to scale.
3. What’s in the workflow is what gets used.
4. Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs—not just their wallets.
5. The right solution comes from the right participants.
6. Balance the top-down and self-management of risk.


Their focus is mostly on internal and B2B uses in this article, although the admonitions fit B2C environments as well. The B2B evolution from automation to collaboration is highlighted in this chart. The focus is on workflow and improving productivity, and that’s very important.

What’s also fun to watch is that McKinsey is following the advice it gives. The next day I got another email from McKinsey. It encouraged me to participate in their Web 2.0 initiatives. As I’ve often pointed out, Web 2.0 initiatives are not “build it and they will come.” They have to be nurtured and promoted, both of which take effort from employees.


They also understand the importance of using multiple channels and making their content visible. When you go to the site to read the article, notice a widget you can download to put McKinsey headlines onto your website or blog. That not only provides additional fresh content to your visitors, it allies you with a respected brand. What’s not to like?

Look again at the six success factors above. They are all management—not technological—factors. In fact, the article makes the point that Web 2.0 tools often represent “a relatively high overlay” in terms of technological investment.

This article represents yet another call for managers to encourage strategic Web 2.0 initiatives and to manage in ways that offer opportunities for success. Without management commitment, Web 2.0 initiatives are doomed to failure!

New Site for News and Brand Monitoring

Over the weekend I set up a new (another, actually) personal page. I had seen a notice about Ogilvy’s The Daily Influence site, and a look suggested it was worth taking for a trial run. I’ve had my Yahoo! start page for many years, and I have no intention of giving that up. I am, however, often surprised when I ask groups how many have a personal page—a lot don’t, so this one might be worth a try.
I liked their social media page—a lot of familiar sources and a few new to me. I added this blog so it would be on the page with the rest. As a news source, I was perfectly happy, except that I wished I could somehow put a link on my Yahoo! page, although it’s not really configured for that. Maybe I can add a widget; I’ll have to work on that.

What I didn’t pay enough attention to in the beginning was The Listening Post feature. Thanks to a review by Melissa Daniels drew my attention to the reputation monitoring feature. I tried that out and was impressed. In the Twitter box I put this blog. A search always produces a lot of noise, because DIY Marketing is a common content phrase these days. I entered the name of a non-profit I work with in the YouTube search box and found more videos than I knew about even though I do pay attention.
So I’d suggest that the news pages are potentially valuable, but the reputation monitoring is more so. At the same time, a comment on Melissa Daniels’ post pointed out that there’s a good list of free tools on Mashable and some of those may be more robust. But for the small business or the beginner, this all-in-one place may be a great time saver and/or an eye opener to the important world of monitoring your brand online.

My PSAs

You may have had some of these during election season also; this is by far the best I’ve seen. So take a minute to view the video and to think about the power of personalization.


Then I’d encourage you to see how Boone Pickens is tying his energy program to election day.

Then go vote!

Personalization--Part 1.5 - Fantastic Example

Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 2 here.
Alisa Leadbetter is Crossmedia Manager for vdBJ/Communicatie Groep, a custom publisher in Holland. She is also an astute observer of the Internet scene there. She furnished the customization example I used in the discussion of personalization on the front end—in customer communications. She was kind enough to follow up with a link to the video that was the basis of the campaign and some commentary. You don’t have to speak Dutch to love the video!

View the video here to see how it's done.

She also provided a link to an article in a Dutch newspaper, and you do have to speak Dutch to read it. Fortunately, she added some commentary:

According to a Dutch newspaper this was the first of its kind in the world. The date on the article is February 2007. The guy in the movie is the leader of the SP, the Socialist party. He was one of the first people in Holland with a blog, they make great use of new media. His blog is mostly ghost written these days, but in the beginning he did most of it himself. They have had a few viral campaigns since this one (and of course they used the e-mail addresses they got in this first campaign for the subsequent campaigns). this was the first of its kind in the world. The date on the article is February 2007. The guy in the movie is the leader of the SP, the Socialist party. He was one of the first people in Holland with a blog, they make great use of new media. His blog is mostly ghost written these days, but in the beginning he did most of it himself. They have had a few viral campaigns since this one (and of course they used the e-mail addresses they got in this first campaign for the subsequent campaigns).

I reserve my right to consider relevant content, selected on the basis of customer knowledge, as the best kind of personalization. However, as far as personalized communications go, this is as good as it gets. People like to see their name in print and the creators of this program have done it in such a way that it’s almost guaranteed to go viral.

Are you old enough to remember the personalized Porsche campaign—probably in the late 80s/early 90s? It was a poster (paper; those were direct mail days) with a front view of a Porsche with the customer’s name on the license plate. I tried for a long time to get a copy of it. It went only to Porsche owners and none of them were about to give it up. I suspect some may still be hanging in dens or offices.

As I’ve already pointed out, database marketers learned to use personalization a couple of decades ago and there were the occasional, really creative uses like Porsche. However, in those days the best you could hope for was to reach your own mailing list and maybe a brief article in DM News or AdAge. Today, creative use of personalization goes viral. Consider the wonderful use of a video, a personalized message, and a viral campaign in the Dutch political example. That’s the power of the Internet!
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Personalization--Part 2 - The Back End

Read Part 1 here
Personalization of customer communications is can be a powerful marketing technique. It is best exemplified by carefully-chosen content that is relevant to the customer’s activities and interests, not simply by addressing customers by name. On the front end it can be used to attract attention and encourage action. On the back end it places great demands on data and systems. Relevant behavioral data must be captured and maintained in a form that makes it accessible to personalized marketing communications programs. Systems must be in place to ensure data quality and security, maintain it in actionable form, and deliver it when required. Marketing and IT are the two major players in these activities, but they require the informed cooperation of personnel throughout the organization. That requires the backing of top management. Put together, as they are in this graphic from Marketing Charts it’s a very tall order.
The CMO personalization survey confirms observation and anecdote that indicates few firms are handling the data and systems issues well. Their findings include:

•Nearly 50 percent of marketers report having fair to poor or little knowledge of customers, and almost 47 percent rate their company’s data integration capabilities as being deficient or needing improvement.
•[Only about] 10 percent of respondents rate the accuracy and reliability of their customer data as extremely good.
•Many marketers currently spend less than 10 percent of their budgets on personalized
communications; looking ahead, 55 percent say they will spend more than 10 percent.
•Purchasing history/activity – as well as size, profitability and location of customer – are key data points for designing personalized communications campaigns.
•Multi-channel integration is still lagging in personalized communications as almost 50 percent of marketers report a low degree of integration.
•Marketers appear fearful and intimidated by the investments required for personalized communications as there has been limited testing across all areas.

The effectiveness of personalized communications has been long established, as I suggested yesterday. Likewise the challenges of shared organizational ownership of data that leads to poor data capture and management are not new to those who have practiced database marketing since the 70s. These problems do not seem to be getting better. In fact the sheer volume of data available on the Internet seems to have exacerbated them. The CMO report includes expert commentary on the results. Bernard Gracy,VP, Strategy and Business Development forPitney Bowes Document Messaging Technologies hit the nail squarely on the head. He lists the top three challenges as being:

• Inadequate systems, data, resources and budgets. Personalization requires an effective investment to improve our available solutions – something many marketers are hesitant to make.
• The disconnect and lack of communication between chief marketing executives, who serve as the primary directors of personalized marketing initiatives and sales and customer relationship management groups, which most frequently maintain control of data used in these campaigns.
• An ineffective tracking system for a customer’s purchase history and activity, as well as size,profitability and location of customer. These are, by far, the most important key data points for designing personalized communications.

He adds that, “Tapping into “The Power of Personalization” requires marketing, IT, and operations divisions to work in concert – to link disparate databases across the enterprise to create a single view of the customer,create insight from that view, and have that insight.”

At best, that’s a hard job. Without top management understanding (this is not all going to happen overnight) and support (it’s going to take some front-end investment; ROI will come later), the job will not get done. The CMO study provides useful guidelines. It also suggests that CMOs will have to champion the personalization initiative within the organization. That takes marketing strategy skills, some rudimentary knowledge of what the technology can and cannot do, and the ability to bring disparate groups within the organization together around a common theme.

Let’s hope we have lots of CMOs with the combination of marketing and organizational skills necessary to pull it together on the back end. With the back end in place, the front end will be able to field compelling personalized communications.

Without it, companies will languish in the back waters of untargeted mass communications. That cancels out major capabilities of channels like email and websites themselves. That’s unfortunate, and in the end, it’s a waste of resources. Better to invest in the data that will enable meaningful use of the technology.
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Personalization--Part 1 - The Front End

The CMO Council has just released a study of personalization, covered in Marketing Charts yesterday. The Council surveyed over 700 senior marketing and executive officers in companies around the world to learn how they gauged the impact of personalization and the extent to which they were using it.

Personalization is hardly a new topic to marketers. Direct marketers have been using it for years, especially in mail marketing. Some has been good and effective, some has been silly or downright awful. You’ve seen it all. Even reasonably well done, personalization does work. The carry-over to email marketing is obvious. According to the CMO Council:

• Spending on direct-mail advertising (an integral part of personalized communication applications)shows no sign of abating; investments by marketers totaled $58.4 billion in 2007, and that figure isexpected to increase to more than $70 billion by 2011 (source: Winterberry Group).
• More than $3 billion was spent in the U.S. alone on e-mail marketing (source: EmailInsider).
• Yet, an overwhelming 56 percent of marketers believe personal communications out-performs traditional mass market delivery; digital, database-driven channels (email, web, contact centers)reportedly offer the most upside potential for engaging in customized communications (source:The Power of Personalization)

What exactly does personalization accomplish? According to the report it improves customer retention and loyalty by increasing conversion, close and action rates and increasing website traffic. I’d add another outcome; used creatively personalization can increase the chance of a communication going viral. Here’s a global example, a Dutch politician to be precise. This is apparently the politician, Jan, standing under a sign with the recipient’s name, Eelke. The political email included the usual “send it to a friend” with a twist. When you forwarded it to the friend, the name of the recipient showed up in the sign, according to the Dutch marketer who sent me the example. That is a creative—effective—front-end use of personalization!

I define "front end" as all the activities that lead up to a sale--all the things we do to attract the attention of customers and put them in a frame of mind to take action. The action can be a visit to a website, a request for information, sale of a product or service, or in this case support of a political candidate.
In spite of its effectiveness, marketers are not making extensive use of personalization according to the survey (download the report from the CMO Council). Not because it doesn’t work, but because their organizations and their back-end systems are not with the program.

So tomorrow, the back end of personalized marketing.
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