Why Personalization is (usually) a bad idea

A follow-up from yesterday's post

Quick administrative notes:

• Lifetime memberships are now available. $300 right now. Will increase to $500 on Saturday, and will not be discounted again

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• If you had a membership in the earlier iteration of Marketing BS+, it will still work (you can verify by reading this entire “premium post”). I have not found a way that you can take advantage of the $50 lifetime offer, so just send me a note to say you want it, and then remind me when your subscription expires and I will adjust it manually.

Onto the update…

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Yesterday, in discussion of Mattel’s launch of a Barbie doll with Down Syndrome, I wrote: “Most personalization is a terrible waste of company resources”. Today I want to expand on that statement and explain why I wrote it.

Personalization is one of those terms that could mean very different things to different people in different contexts. When I write that personalization is a waste of resources I mean specifically the personalization that tries to categorize customers based on their behavior and then send them “personalized” messages. I am first going to explain why that type of personalization is such a waste, and then give some examples of where personalization IS appropriate.

Why Personalization is Usually a Bad Idea