Just after 8 pm on my
birthday, this email landed in my inbox:
Hi
Allan,
Here's
to another year of happy travels. When you're out celebrating in Newbury you
may like to hint to your friends that one of our top offers below would make a
great gift. Or make this the year you visit that must-see destination (check
out our favourites for the coming months).
Best
wishes,
The
Opodo team
Those ‘top
offers’ included a three night city break in New York for £526, a flight to
Dubai for £312 and an attractively priced 3-star hotel room in Bangkok for £16
(leaving me only with the challenge of working out which friend would pay for
my £473 flight).
Opodo gathered some information from me when I booked a flight with them. And they are determined to use it. They know three things about me: that one of my names is Allan, the date of my birthday, and that I used to live near Newbury. They have decided that, as a result, they have a relationship with me.
If Opodo did
in fact have a relationship with me, they would know this:
- No-one who knows me calls me Allan
- I live near to Oxford
- None of my friends would buy me a flight ticket or a night in a hotel in Bangkok for a present
We have to accept that mass marketers live in a world of personalised rather than personal relationships. But rather than trying to make our communications seem relevant, we should focus on making them actually relevant, by looking beyond the obvious.
On the face
of it, Opodo know very little about me. In fact they know much more. They know
my age/lifestage. They know that I booked a flight to a European destination, for
two adults and a child. They know that I did not book a hotel, or anything
else. They know it’s more than two years since I bought anything from them,
that they have sent me emails at least twice a month since then, that I open
them only when they feature a competition and click through almost never. All
of this tells them much more about my propensity to buy from them than my
birthday. Their challenge is not to remember to wish me many happy returns, but
to find a way of tempting me to come back to them. And e-marketing gives them
the flexibility to tailor their proposition, not just the way it is
communicated.
Accurate,
updated customer and prospect data may appear to be the solution to the
problem, but it’s not the whole story. Knowing your customers’ names and birthdays
may help to put the finishing touches to your communication, but it won’t
guarantee relevance. So when you’re planning your next targeted campaign, don’t
ask ‘what personal information are we using in this communication?’ Ask ‘what
information are we not using, and how can we start to exploit it effectively?’
Make your
message personalised and your customers might open it. Make it relevant and
there’s a good chance they will buy.
