Personality Marketing: Smart Data Instead Of Big Data
Big Data: The data collection mania – not just in marketing – has broadly acquired absurd characteristics. Who bought when, where, how, what discount did they get, on what action did they buy, what bonus system has been applied, did they search on the internet, what credit card was used, did they consult forums first, what accessories are they missing, what is the buyer’s age, height, sex?
What marketers who are using rich data ultimately want to find out is “what else can we offer these customers?”. That’s why so many questions are being asked here. But these are often the wrong ones. The important questions are “why?” and “how?”. Then all you need is: Small Data!
The important questions have to do with the client’s personality. Consider the motives for purchases or choices, and then think of the communication: How do I address my message to you, the Customer, so that you are not annoyed, surprised but not bored, convinced but not persuaded? In short: so that you feel understood. And respected.
Small Data in Personality Marketing: address customer need types
Whether your customers are businesses (B2B) or people (B2C), they have a personality structure. This is reflected in the corporate culture or in their personal, individual preferences. This structure is based on the inner values, personality traits and behaviours of people. In Human Resources, diagnostic tools such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) profiles have been widely used and tend to make it easier to recognize a personality structure.
Most of these profiles organize personality types initially in different colours (red, yellow, blue, green) or categories (introvert, thinker type) for ease of understanding. This makes it possible to decide which employees really fit the corporate culture, or how effectively and smoothly teams can be put together more easily. Because what would happen in a team which consisted only of “red people power”? It would wipe out the competition. A team of nothing but inspiring “yellow” visionaries would certainly have great ideas, but perhaps not the skills to implement the ideas successfully.
Just like that, your clients also have individual personality structures. Each individual one is a bit different – but there are groups of personality profiles that show significant similarities: they share similar motives, similar values, similar attitudes, similar communication behaviour, similar work patterns, similar criteria for purchase decision.
Marketing that respects a customer’s personality
Therefore, of course, a supplier’s communication and marketing to the customer are particularly effective if he is able to assess his customer’s personality profile and address him respectfully on this basis. A small but growing number of companies and sales staff use tools for personality diagnosis. Smart Data!
The question now is how do you get this smart data. How do you find out how a customer or a potential new customer ticks? Let’s take a furniture chain as a concrete example.
About their customers they know from previous purchasing behaviour – and this has nothing to do with Big Data collection – the following buyer types. The person who bought the luxury giant sofa combination in the Bauhaus style, the design classic side tables or the big desk in piano finish has a certain representation need. He is an example of a “red” director type, an extroverted person. “My home is a castle!” The light wood combination for the large kitchen appeals to the social “green” customer: “My home is my castle!”. He would also take a few cuddly cushions for the corner seat. The “blue” analytical customer uses a checklist in which he exactly sums up the pros and cons of each bedroom cabinet. And brings along a dozen drawings of his future bedroom to match the right one. Finally, the “yellow” inspirer, the “creative connoisseur”, has decided on sofas in magenta – quite stylish and avant-garde – which he guarantees will be replaced by a new design style in two years.
Different colours, images and speech patterns for different customer types in Personality Marketing
The example of the furniture chain is about small data. But they are sufficient to continue supplying these customers with the information they really want. Information that addresses their needs. That matches their needs.
Why is that? Since for each of these personality types, specific products and design lines of the furniture store fit not only their needs, but also their image. Certain colours. Certain communication forms. Certain language patterns. The one who knows these patterns knows how to address these personality types respectfully so that they feel understood. That they see their wishes respected. And are willing to receive irresistible offers.
Address potential new customers in a smart way
But how do you address potential new customers so eloquently and respectfully? Next is a business case of a large clothing store in Germany that also has an online shop. Experience shows that a large number of the people interested in fashion, both returning visitors (“do they have something that fits my taste?”) and local first time visitors, investigate offers on the website. The fashion house in this example had integrated an attractively laid-out survey on the home page of the online store, in which prospects and customers could simply put their preferred looks together with much less data.
The test results – along with product offerings and matching special deals – were shipped in a personal report to the specified email address. If the prospect agreed, then he would receive deals based on his personality type in future mailings. The report also provided a voucher that could be used for the first purchase in a local branch of the fashion house – and not in the online shop. Customers even took their reports to the shop to show the sellers on the spot what they liked and what suited them. This approach improves the quality of advice and customer satisfaction with the sellers. Not to mention the number of purchases.
Marketing without manipulation – face-to-face communication with the customer
We don’t talk about manipulation here, but rather customers recognizing the correct personality type in our offering. Honestly, one has to admit surely that any form of marketing communication has a certain goal. There is no non-manipulative communication, because each person (and each company) in fact has a certain intention for every communication expression. But Personality Marketing aims to communicate face-to-face with customers: a communication that indicates that customers are taken seriously with their values and their attitudes. That they should not be talked into something that simply does not fit into their world.
Experience shows that Personality Marketing-based assessment tools are significantly more successful: mailings with a personality type-based layout get more attention, flyers with type-based colour are read more in detail, texts with type-based wording generate more response. Sellers with a type-based sales approach are more empathic, friendly and helpful.
But you don’t need Big Data! You just need Smart Data – and respect for your clients’ personality.
