When Personalization Goes Awry

But all personalization is not necessarily good personalization, and we're starting to learn more about what makes a good one-to-one marketing process. Heidi Tolliver-Nigro recently weighed in on the subject in her blog over at The Digital Nirvana.

In a classic Seinfeld episode, the comedian joked, "There's good naked and bad naked." So it is with personalization. There's good personalization and bad personalization.

The goal of personalized communication, whether it's in print or email, is to create a message that is relevant to the recipient and engages the recipient in a relationship with the marketer. While some may think that more personalization is better, that's not always the case. You have to be careful what and how you personalize.

Heidi goes on to describe a recent example she got via email that made her want to cancel her relationship with the sender. You certainly don't want to abuse the trust you set up with customers when asking them for personal information in the first place.