Dec
On the Importance of Personalization
Posted by Dan Taylor in Business HelpTagged: auto-responder, dinner party, feedburner, marketing, personalization, Twitter
Due to a technical snafu at a site I agreed not to name, I ended up getting a repeated “Hey, thanks for commenting on my site. If you’ve never been here before, and enjoyed the post, why not sign up for my RSS feed?” etc. etc. A quick email back and forth, and she’d solved the problem, but this got me to thinking about the importance of personalization.
We’ve all received these automated messages, and while the first 3 or 4 might slip by, after a while, the auto-responder is a real turn off. If you’re going to make the effort to make the experience personal – don’t do it with an Auto-Responder. Carve out the time to actually make a connection with someone who signs up for a subscription, or makes a ‘value’ comment.
Let’s look at this from a different angle. Let’s say you’re having a dinner party – a really, REALLY big dinner party. You head off to the printer to have invitations printed. Cooking preparations start weeks in advance of the big feast. GaryVee himself has selected the wine. In other words – you’ve got a AAA dinner all set to go.
The table is set, the wine is decanted, the candles are lit…..and the guests begin to arrive. Now, you’ve got two ways to handle that doorbell.
- You promptly answer the door, smile, greet your guests, take their coat, and offer a drink and a place to sit.
- You send your automated robot to the door welcoming guests.
Right.
Your site is your dinner party. You’ve made all the preparations. Your CSS is clean and crisp. You’ve checked your feedburner feeds thrice. Your appetizers (twitter) and main course (blog) should all lead towards dessert (the sale). Imagine sending your Auto-Responder bot to the front door to greet your guests. Yes, it’s better than not answering the door at all, but still not quite the overall effect we’re going for.
First impressions count.
So do yourself a favor, and go that extra mile, find the time to respond to each of your new commenter’s and/or subscribers. My first experience with this approach came via Julian Seery Guide from Local Na8ion. I left a comment on his personal blog, and got a human typed, actual ‘thank you’ note within the hour directly from Julian himself. A back and forth ensued throughout the day, and low and behold, I’ve got a new follower on twitter, a facebook group request, and a new subscriber on YouTube. Total time invested by Julian? I’d reckon anywhere between 15-25 minutes tops. Time invested on my end? Approximately the same amount.
Once I started doing the same with my commenter’s and subscribers, I noticed a whopping 20-40 percent response rate to my handcrafted ‘hey thanks buddy!’ emails, which in turn has precipitated a number of great conversations, knowledge sharing and learning, and garnered a number of new connections across various social networking platforms. Could your Auto-Responder accomplish that?
While I know that responding to each incoming message is going to take some time, it’s not a question of having the time, but rather making the time. Agreed, not all responses are going to lead to a gold egg, but chances are, you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Or Auto-Respond bots.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I agree some level of personalization is necessary when building or extending one’s professional or personal brand, but speaking solely about Twitter, I’m unable to personally respond to each and every new follower.
Is there an inherent danger in doing so? No, not for me personally. I don’t follow everyone who follows me on Twitter, honestly, because I’m not interested in being sold something daily or reading Tweets about personal family, health, or relationship problems that an increasing number of people feel compelled to share.
Another consideration in not immediately following someone on Twitter is that I wait to see HOW and WHY said person would follow me. Are they a fellow writer, editor, artist, New Yorker, transplant? Or are they collecting people like the veritable bedpost notch after a sexual dalliance?
When someone reaches out to me in a meaningful and genuine way over a period of time, I’m more likely to follow back.
I’m not on Twitter to sell anything, but to network with interesting, like-minded souls, not necessarily in the arts, but it does help as we might be kindred souls.
Your above example of a robot answering the door for dinner guests is appropriate for those in marketing, sales, or business, but for those of us that use Twitter for other reasons, it’s lost.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
@Harlem Writer
That is EXACTLY why I love Twitter…it is what you make of it!
I talked about that very thing on my post this week (and very strange, I made the same “bed post” notch analogy!)
Blogs are different, they are more personal & deserve a an email back to the individual when called for (which most of us don’t get an average of 50 responses every time we hit “publish” so it IS more manageable than Twitter).
Thanks again for your post, greatly appreciated.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:16 am
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December 7th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Blogroll links aint that great :P but i am not the admin