WIFM?- What’s in for me?—Personalized communication in the digital mobile world.
The new challenges of new-age personalised communication– a marketing nightmare!
The generation Z, iGen or Centennials are going to be the ones who are going to ask on all communication -WIFM. Marketing communication too, cannot be left behind, but in the mobile world where you are trying to reach specific individuals and not a category of people, the challenge is for the brands to capitalize on new opportunities and feed the individual consumers with information, personalized recommendation intuitive interfaces, more efficient services or just-in-time notifications—all these will be data-driven.
What happens with so much data around, it becomes a nightmare for the brands to target a specific piece of communication because there could be many variables that drive the emotional decision of an individual. It is told that 2/5th of the millennial and Gen Z consumers use a separate mail account only for spam emails. With dual sim card in mobile phones being a new norm, people keep 2 nos. for the same reason. All this results in a generalized communication with the intent of being personalized.
So when you are part of several WhatsApp, Telegram groups, how many of the messages you actually read is a question. 40% of consumers as per a survey have at least 50 unread email messages (Check your own WhatsApp Messages in groups – you have actually read??) Now top it with business WhatsApp groups(paid) which the advertiser spends heavily but can it actually yield the RoI?
Many of the local digital agencies focus their efforts on various mediums and their claim of understanding Google, FB, and Instagram’s algorithm, the fact though is that data available in abundance doesn’t give any meaning to the reality that every customer is unique and wants to be treated uniquely We cannot, therefore put people in buckets and have to treat and communicate uniquely with offers based on individuals.
Many of the consumers love the chatbot experience without knowing that they are communicating with one, sometimes it really gets irritating, when it tries to throw machine answers whereas you are trying to look at a solution. It is like you want to talk to a person on the other side to address some immediate concern regarding your banking problem, and you are made to listen to the IVR lady and the bank’s new product offering. Recently, I had called a hospital and was connected to the IVR, which guided me to take a note of a number, just imagine with so much emphasis on UX in the digital world, someone has forgotten the basic challenge of mobile communication.