It’s a question I get all the time: are all of the advances in personalization potentially making experiences creepy?
It’s a concept that’s been in play for centuries, if you think about it. I love the example of the old-time neighbourhood grocer. He knew all of his customers by name and face, knew their families, their friends and their weekly grocery list. He’d hold a special cut of meat for a “regular,” or save the last candy bar for the kid who, like clockwork, came in every Friday after school. It wasn’t creepy at all—if anything, it’s the emotional manifestation of everything we as marketers try to do through our own optimization and personalization methods. Our grocery store is just infinitely larger and filled with limitless goods, and we know virtually everything there is to know about our customers.
Our grocer’s relevance delivery was helpful, inviting and likely drove incredible loyalty and increased conversion week after week. But … could it have been creepy? Absolutely! Imagine if he followed a customer home, peeked in her window, saw she was running low on flour, and showed up in the middle of the night with a five-pound bag. That would, no doubt, have veered from “spot-on” through “pushy” and into “creepy” on the relevance meter. The moral of the story? Don’t do that—whether you’re a grocer or a digital marketer.
Think about it: you have that friendly neighbourhood grocer who has something really unique to offer. A major grocery chain moves in, and he still thrives—even with higher prices—because of the level of personalization he delivers to his loyal customers. There’s a certain level of personalization that consumers expect when it comes to buying something like a computer or through eCommerce. But is it the same, at its core, as the expectation a customer has when walking through the grocer’s door? Is the path to personalization success for the grocer the same as creating a meaningful experience surrounding the purchase of a personal computer? Are there certain marketing imperatives for one category that start to cross into that creepy zone in another?
When you boil it all down, does it make a difference what the consumer is purchasing when it comes to personalization? Are the steps and best practices the same, or does a consumer have different expectations and core concerns as he or she moves through different buying stages in their digital lives?
Marketers need to start thinking about your personalization efforts no matter where you are in your optimizational maturity. Think about ways you can be the grocer who knows his customers and through thoughtful, practical, personalization efforts delivers a spot-on experience that drives consideration and immediate conversion every time.
This article originally appeared on Adobe’s Digital Marketing Blog.
