Personal Information In E-Mail Marketing Can Backfire, Study Indicates
July 2nd, 2008, 11:55 pm Hobbies Ideas
Businesses risk chasing away prospective customers when they send chummy e-mails that bandy around people’s names, hobbies and other personal information to pitch sales, according to a new study of the popular marketing tool.
“People bristle at personalization just for the sake of personalization,” said Tiffany Barnett White, a University of Illinois marketing professor who headed the research. “It comes across as too pushy. They want personalization that is relevant to them.”
To click, personalized e-mails need to offer value and also quickly explain how personal information such as buying tastes and leisure interests relates to the sales pitch, according to the study, which appears in Marketing Letters, a peer-reviewed journal.
“When messages are highly personalized, but lack value and justification, they have unintended effects,” White said. “They can actually have a boomerang effect and cast the firm in a negative light, sending customers running to the competition.”
The study surveyed undergraduate students to gauge response to marketing e-mails with varying amounts of personal data, ranging from just names and hometowns to more detailed information such as reading or cooking preferences.
In the end, the degree of personalization was less important than whether the pitch had value, and whether it told customers how the deal and their personal information intertwined, according to the study, co-written by marketing professors Sharon Shavitt of the U. of I., Helge Thorbjorsen of the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration and Debra Zahay of Northern Illinois University.
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