Digital 2018 Goal: Don’t Be Creepy

When I was a child I remember watching all sorts of television shows and movies that featured rugged folk living in small towns in frontier America. A constant staple of every town was the General Store. Anyone remember Olson’s Mercantile from Little House on the Prairie? That is the image that comes to my mind every time I think of a general store.

Mr. Olson was a great shop keeper. He was fair, he knew his customers, and he knew what to keep in stock and when so that the farmers and frontiersmen had what they needed to survive throughout the year. Mr. Olson’s Mercantile had just enough of everything a customer could want.

In his own way, Mr. Olson also practiced customer intelligence because he knew that part of the business was providing great experiences to his customers. To do that, he needed to know the townspeople. He knew their general income levels, when they were on hard times and good. He knew about spouses and kids. He knew the elderly and the sick. He knew birthdays and anniversaries. He knew favorite colors and fabrics. He knew what repairs and projects were coming up and the likely supplies that would be needed.

He may have even tried new things occasionally, to see if they would take, and he knew who to try them on.

Overall, Mr. Olson knew his Audience.

One thing Mr. Olson wasn’t was creepy.

Never once did he follow people out of the store all the way home with a bolt of fabric.

Or find them out on the farm, showing them a tool they already said no to.

If he did those things, the townspeople would stop doing business with him, and probably start questioning his sanity.

So why do we do those exact things with our customers online?

It used to be because we didn’t have ways to know when enough was enough, and our customers really couldn’t stop us. Times have changed, and that is no longer the case. Browsers are beginning to block remarketing advertisements because people are tired of seeing something they looked at once for the next three months. It is time for digital marketing organizations to adapt and change, before it becomes harder to have meaningful experiences with customers.

The Adobe Experience Cloud has the features to enable your organization to be like Mr. Olson and:

“Know the products your customer is most interested in. (Optimization, Recommendations & Affinity Modeling)

“Understand the right time to interact with your customers. (Optimization & Propensity Modeling)

“Understand the right channels and devices for interactions. (Optimization & Attribution Modeling)

“Know when the customer isn’t interested and back off (Frequency Capping)

In 2018 make it the goal of your organization to be like Mr. Olson and don’t be creepy!