Silencing The Critics
Proponents of individualized marketing (count me in that group) are regularly faced with incredulous critics who deny the possibility, or at least the logistic feasibility, of sending unique communications to each of their thousands or millions of customers.
One way to break down this credibility gap is to publicize individual marketing success stories. That’s why we publish customer success stories. As is typical in this industry, many of our customers don’t want their name used or their results revealed to maintain some competitive advantage, so we redact and rename and anonymize to protect their identity. Nevertheless, the results are there for you to see, and they are excellent, often spectacular.
Another way to confirm the power of individualized marketing is through systematic testing. The components of an individualized communication — who is targeted, the offer, the messaging, when it’s sent — can each be separately tested to see if that component is working or needs to be adjusted.
For skeptics, testing may be a better way to become a true believer. There is a cold, hard logic to using control groups to reveal what’s happening.
- That’s why control groups are automatically built into campaigns generated by Longbow 2.0
- That’s why our customers are often using multiple control groups to test multiple aspects of a single individualized campaign
- That’s why we have a new white paper on Testing Individualized Marketing to show you how to build the right control groups.
Testing is in our corporate DNA, and if it’s not in yours, maybe it should be. It’s the best way to silence the critics.