5.3. Personalization of the Marketing Message

The aforementioned examples are close to fulfilling a marketing manager’s dreams, in which clients receive, at the right place and at the right time, a marketing message that is adjusted to their needs. Still, it is not an easy task, and badly targeted marketing messages are more usual:⁸

• Untimely message. A client is identified properly, but the message reaches him or her too late.
• Irrelevant message. A client is identified properly, but when he or she receives the message, he or she takes no interest in an offer.
• Repeat message. A client repeatedly receives the same message.
• Unqualified message. A message sent to a client is misunderstood; it may also happen that there is no chance to serve him or her when he or she responds positively.
• Discordant message. A message is relevant, but it is interwoven with other messages that are unsuitable, although they come from the same source.

A suitable marketing message should therefore

• correspond to a client’s needs,
• correspond to a client’s profile,
• be consistent with other marketing messages sent to a client,
• meet the client’s requirements concerning obtained permission,
• be sent at the right time and in context the client understands,
• be sent in a manner that is most compatible with its content and the client’s preferences,
• make a response easier for a client.

Both the content and form of a suitable marketing message are a consequence of a client’s profile.⁹ The profile itself is worked out on the basis of the data collected about a client. However, the data are not always collected directly, and in many cases they are collected when a client is unaware that a profile is being registered or deduced from previous data. In principle, collecting data about a client falls into one of four categories:¹⁰

• Perfect data. These are actual information registered through contact with a client, such as full name, address, and so on, which is obtained directly from a client when a contract with a client is being concluded.
• Imperfect data. Data that is unreliable because they are connected with a product or service that may be used by more than one person (i.e., prepaid mobile phones).
• Passive data. Data that are not provided consciously by a client but are registered by monitoring his or her behavior—that is, buying preferences registered when he or she conducts transactions by a credit card or client preferences determined on the basis of registration of so-called click streams (which are a sequence of visits to websites and registered keywords used in search engines). Yet another example is the determining of the intensity and the nature of social contacts on the basis of a contact map, which is built through analysis of telephone calls, traffic, and SMS content.¹¹
• Derived data. Data about a client deduced informally from other data; for example, age might be concluded from registered interests or previous shopping. Obviously, such data has limited credibility.