Stop sending me diapers. Marketing to the person.

Some of my most recent marketing experience is born out of the direct marketing world. I worked for a company that sells predictive modeling solutions to companies and non-profits looking to improve their list returns.  You can find them here now as they have re-branded and are continuing to evolve.

What I liked about their approach was that it was trying to get the right message to the right person (an overused analogy if you ask me, but true) by identifying "likenesses" between people.  If Joe Smith is your top customer, find other people that look like Joe and market to them.

Think about it.  We are inundated with messages on an ongoing basis.  We receive mail pieces - both postal and email - in addition to online banners, buttons, videos, text, images and logos, all trying to grab our attention and get us to buy.

I was perusing the bookstore shelves today and noticed book after book on Facebook marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, inbound marketing, Twitter marketing, and video marketing.  I think all of that can be helpful, but at the end of the day what I really want is for companies to communicate with me - not at me. If you know something about me wouldn't that make it easier to talk to me?

For example, on a regular basis I receive sample diapers in the mail. My kids are 5 and 7 years old. Thankfully, neither of them is still in diapers.  And, 9 out of 10 times, the diapers are wrapped in advertising copy written in Spanish.  I married a Latino man, but can't read or speak a stitch of the language.  It proves they know nothing about me except the "child" column must be checked in their database.

Without getting into the argument over privacy and such, I do think channels and networks like Facebook SHOULD do a better job at targeting my likes and dislikes seeing as I use their network, for free, to store all of my personal information.  It's basically my auto-biography online, and if that will stop the diapers from showing up in my mailbox and gets them to the Hispanic woman who can really use them - I think I'm on board with that advertising model.

What do you think?  Would you rather stay anonymous and provide gender only and hope the marketers get it right? Or would you rather open up the lines of communication and get what could benefit you?

Tough one, I know.

Delivering your message

Thanks for stopping by - I'm excited to share some thoughts, rants and questions with you.

In case you didn't know, I had been hanging out here for a while but am now on my own and figured why stop sharing and exchanging ideas just because I can't fill in the "Company Name" field any longer?  So let's get going and see where this takes us, shall we?

Today is my husband's birthday. I won't share his age, but he will always be older than me.  And in our kitchen is a small chalkboard where I will post messages for the kids - everything from "Make Good Choices" to "Happy July 4th". The kids love to see if it has changed each morning (or week) and what the new message is.

This morning my son look sad and told me he was disappointed that the message on the chalkboard still read "It's Summer Time" and not "Happy Birthday Daddy".  I quickly made the change and his smile returned. Doesn't take much to get back on his good side.

But it got me thinking about how messages are delivered and how our expectations are set for them. Do we want regular, updated statuses or do we want to be able to control when we receive information?

I was recently hounded by Verizon because I was over my texting limit (for one month out of the 60 I've been a customer) and they felt the need to repeatedly call my cell phone only to hang up when I answered. What kind of message were they sending? Perhaps it was, we will make you go over on your minutes to match your texts by calling you every hour or so.  I'm not sure. I only know it was Verizon because my frustration forced me to call the number back only to be hung up on again.

Whether it is words on a chalkboard, poor efforts at customer service or 140 characters online, there are messages thrown at us 365 and companies should take pause to be sure the message they're sending is the one they want received.