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At this time of year it’s not surprising to receive email offers by the truckload.
Save 20% all day on Tuesday
Save 30% until Friday
Free P&P
Buy one get one half price
Buy three and get the fourth free
One day sale!
And this is just a few of the many that I receive day in day out, but what is blindingly obvious is that little targeting goes into sending out these email offers. Too often it’s a ‘spray and pray’ approach. Send to all and hope some people will buy. Well, for those who do, they’ll know doubt say it works. Well done! But what have you proved, that the same offer to everyone results in a return on investment. Not particularly sophisticated is it and doesn’t exactly create a good customer experience.
I continually make the point that good direct marketing through whatever channel is about targeting - targeting the right message (tailored), to the right audience (target), at the right moment (timely). But why in an age of sophisticated technology, when the cost of doing so is relatively inexpensive, do I still get the same offer as my neighbour, even though our purchasing habits are completely different? Are organisations maximising the value of either of us as customers? I’d suggest not. Instead I get a little peeved receiving offers that don’t matched either of the three ‘T’s’ and not surprisingly they end up in my junk folder. Not great customer experience.
Rarely am I asked by organisations what kind of offers I’d like to receive and rarely does it appear that the information that I give over, either explicitly (through entering information about myself) or implicitly (through my actions online), is used to target offers.
In an age when organisations are fighting for each consumer’s pound, it’s about time they used the information they have appropriately. Where information is lacking organisations should consider supplementing what they have with data from external parties - be it in the form of variables appended to their database or simple geo-demographic tools to add that richness and granularity that allows you to use the three ‘T’s’ effectively.
Jonathan Burston
CACI Ltd
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