One-to-one marketing and its implications for copywriters

September 18, 2008 | 3 Comments

In recent weeks, I’ve discussed why you need to adjust your copywriting’s personality to appeal to different audiences. It just comes with the territory.

Well, the rise of one-to-one marketing means the ability to mould your language and style to match your target market could soon be in greater demand.

What is one-to-one marketing?

With marketing budgets being dragged towards the guillotine, marketers are scrambling to deliver campaigns that provide a better return on investment.

The cost of mass, untargeted campaigns is becoming harder to justify, and annoying prospects with irrelevant messages is to be avoided when customer retention is so high on the agenda.

In order to improve their relevancy and appeal, marketing campaigns need to be personalised to match the preferences of each prospect. This can be achieved by capturing data on customers (e.g. with personalised URLs) and then using it to customise future campaigns.

Subsequent email and direct mail messages can then be delivered that feature the products and services a target has shown an interest in. Better one-to-one targeting in this way means campaigns can be more relevant, generate more sales and stave off a marketing budget’s execution.

So what has this got to do with copywriters?

As far as I’m aware, currently the main elements personalised within one-to-one campaigns are the name, images and products offered. However, as more data is added to the pile then future campaigns can be more finely tuned and personalised to match the profile of each customer.

With the personality of copy so important to marketing’s effectiveness, it’s not a wild leap of faith to envision the language of campaign’s being customised to appeal to the personality type of each prospect.

Different personality types (B2B buyers, the technically minded, service orientated etc) respond to different emotional triggers. So it would make sense to be able to adjust the copywriting of one-to-one marketing campaigns to match each segment.

Speculation, but worth considering

If your product is targeted at a wide cross section then delivering one-to-one marketing with copywriting customised to appeal to a particular profile type could reap rich rewards.

Pure speculation at this stage, but something worth ‘added value’ copywriters being aware of because the effectiveness of one-to-one marketing means it’s a strategy that’s set to grow.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Copywriting, Marketing 

Which Personality Type Does Your Copywriting Appeal To?

September 4, 2008 | 2 Comments

Different people like to be spoken to in different ways. Some want to know the facts, whilst others are more interested in hearing a story.

So copywriting needs to be pitched to match the attitude and style of your target audience, and resonate with their personality type, if you want it to provoke the right response.

In my last post, I discussed why you need to give your copywriting personality if you want it to build an affinity with your brand and a desire for your products.

To discover which personality to adopt, my tip was to immerse yourself in your target market’s culture: visit their websites and read their magazines to understand how to write in a language that’s fine tuned to their wavelength.

Another tactic used by prominent copywriters, such as Dan Kennedy, is to harness centuries of research into personality types to adjust your copywriting to appeal to their characteristics.

So what are the personality types?

For thousands of years, philosophers, psychologists and behavioural scientists have tried to distil the way people think and behave into personality types. The general consensus is that people fall into one of four categories:

[Summary details provided via Michel Fortin’s post: Does Your Copy Have Personality? – worth a read for more in depth analysis]

Drivers

– They want to know the bottom line: what results your product will provide, when they can have it and how much does it cost.

– B2B buyers, sales managers and hard nosed business people in general

– Stick to the facts with a pithy pitch, rather than getting creative with your prose

Analyticals

– Facts, statistics and features are what these buyers look for. They want to know how your product works and why it will provide the results you claim, so give them the figures to back up your words.

– Scientists, engineers, technicians, doctors and the systematically minded

– Specs, stats and data. Success stories will be ignored

Expressives

- Buying decisions are driven by feelings and the desire to buy products that make them feel good abut themselves. How can you help them impress the Jones’?

- designers, teachers, artistic types and the aspirational

- How will your product make them look good? Paint them a picture of what their life could be like if they’d just hand over their credit card

Amiables

- Compassionate and caring. How can you help them solve a problem? And more importantly, how will your product enable them to help others?

- People who deal with people: consultants, HR, public services etc

- Need assurances, so testimonials and case studies will help, particularly if told in the form of a friendly story

Pigeon holing your target market might seem a simplistic approach to understanding how they think and behave. However, if you try and please everyone then your copy can end up sounding bland and boring.

So it’s worth having a think about whether your target fits into any of these four categories, and then refining your copywriting to compliment their characteristics.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Blog, Copywriting