Stop Personalizing.

by Morgan Alverson | Oct 3, 2023

I read something on LinkedIn the other day that talked about how “personalization has ruined marketing.” And I couldn’t agree more.

We see it everywhere. 

You have to personalize! 

Don’t forget to personalize. 

It’s only going to work if you personalize it.

Here are 5 ways to personalize.

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

But what has happened is now we have salespeople taking 2 seconds to go to your LinkedIn profile to find that one thing they can call out to “personalize” in the email. And then we all end up with messages in our inbox that sound something like this:

Hey Morgan! Saw you went to UGA. Go dawgs! Anyway, here’s this thing I’m selling that has nothing to do with that. Interested in a call?

Womp Womp. 

In an effort to “personalize,” you’ve pushed me away.

We’re killing marketing by personalizing because it’s coming off so disingenuous. We’re trying too hard. We’re trying to personalize in just a few minutes for hundreds of people on a list. You can not build a relationship with someone by simply clicking a button and adding a few words.

That said, I’m not here to sell you on personalizing or not. I simply want to remind you of one thing – rather than personalizing everything, we just need to get back to being human.

The best sales emails I get are human. They’re simple. They point out a problem I’m having and how they might be able to help. They understand there is a person on the other end of the email. It’s authentic. We can’t forget we’re in the business of making and building relationships – of helping a human solve a problem they have.

So stop personalizing if it’s going to be inauthentic. Be human.