Years ago sales people were told to use a prospect’s name to bring them into the conversation and hold their attention. The personalized approach also helped the salesperson remember the customer’s name.
Then came mail merges and we thought we were pretty cool when we could automatically add someone’s name to a form letter in Word. The really skilled people used it not only in the greeting but somewhere in the body of the letter as well.
My, how times have changed. Those sorts of tactics don’t even register as personalization anymore because we have much greater ways of using data to reach our audience.
The Importance of Personalization for Chambers
About nine months ago Gartner, the leading IT and research firm, estimated:
“By 2018, organizations that have fully invested in all types of personalization will outsell companies that have not by 20%.”
A personalized approach has become imperative. You can thank Amazon and Google remarketing for increasing customer expectations in that way. Consumers expect you to understand what they want from you even before they know themselves. We’re getting used to seeing suggestions based on our buying patterns. Even our music selection uses personalized recommendations on Pandora and Amazon Prime Music.
But chambers don’t have Amazon’s budget so how can they personalize the sales approach and communications with their members? Here are a few easy suggestions:
- Use Facebook pixel to create custom audiences.
- Use your chamber management system (or other system) to track important information about members and potential members and use it as part of your follow up.
- Never send out blanket emails such as “Register now…if you’ve already registered, thank you.” You should already have that information. Don’t make someone second guess their registration and whether you’ve received their payment.
- Consider using form fields in your renewal letters to remind members of how they interacted with the chamber over the past year.
- Use your data to remind new members of how they can gain more benefit from the chamber. Include what they’ve already done through the chamber and what they have left to try. Seeing these things written out helps show value and spurs them on to complete the “list.”
Personalization for chambers is becoming increasingly important. It’s time to start thinking about how you can use it for your chamber.
