The word “personalised” gets thrown around a lot these days. Saying that something is personalised isn’t just a fancy way to say personal. It has its own meaning. Read on to find out what those meanings are and why the difference between what’s personal and the personalised is relevant to agents.
What’s the Difference, Technically?
As an agent, you’ve probably used a “personal touch” and “personalisation” in your customer journeys, even if you haven’t realised it.
“Personal” is a describing word. It means that something is private or unique to a particular person.
“Personalised” is a doing word. It’s all about action and means that something has been made for a particular person.
These may just be words, but the ideas behind them carry weight.
What matters is how you understand the relationship between these two ideas and how you can use that understanding to improve your customer relationships.
Why Agents Should Care
As an agent, for example, you might sometimes add a personal touch. This could mean giving out pens with your name on it, or property profiles with your face on it. Some of the big-figure agents even take it as far as rolling out champagne for an open house!
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to add a personal touch. A personal touch just means doing something to make people recognise and remember the agent they’re dealing with.
This tactic is as old as the real estate game itself.
Making something personalised, on the other hand, is more new-school.
To personalise something is to make it unique to the customer.
More and more businesses are starting to do this. It’s easier than ever to order a t-shirt with a personal message or photo on it. Facebook creates personal videos about peoples’ online friendships and lets their users share them on their wall.
Technology has dawned a revolution in personalisation.
These companies are only making one product, but they change them so that each item is completely unique to the customer.
This takes the guesswork out of marketing and product creation.
In the past, companies had to try and create one product or marketing campaign that worked for the majority of their target market. The genius of modern personalisation is that it lets the customer create the product that’s perfect for themselves!
For the Last Time: How Does this Help Agents!?
To be fair, personalisation isn’t completely new to real estate.
Think of the classic: the agent Christmas card campaign, where an agent handwrites personal messages to everyone in their database. Some of the top agents even do this for all their contacts’ birthdays as well.
At least, it used to be just the top agents.
These days any agent can easily personalise in two steps.
First, you need to know about your contacts to be able to cater to their unique personalities. The obvious details to find out are name, phone, address. On top of that, go the extra mile.
What are your contact’s interests? Do you know what food they like? Do they have a pet?
This level of detail might seem like overkill, but people are doing it. It’s how you get ahead. Knowing these things about a person helps you build stronger relationships with your database.
Getting this information can be easy, if you’re a good listener. You’ll be surprised what kinds of information people reveal about themselves in casual conversations.
To keep track of all your contacts’ details, add an extra column in your database. The great thing about digital contact lists is that you can add heaps of custom fields without your data getting completely out of control.
Once you’ve got an idea about who your contacts are as people, the second step is easy.
There are heaps of digital platforms that let you integrate with you database and send personalised messages to your contacts.
Google Calendar is great example. Just plug your contacts’ birthdays into your calendar and send people a text when you get a notification. If you’re really clever, you can even use a third party app to send the texts for you automatically.
Technology has improved personalisation so that, like Facebook, any agent can deliver digital messaging that is unique to individuals.
What is the difference in something that is personal versus personalisation?
Something that is personalised (made for a particular person) lets you have a personal conversation (unique to an individual).
The ideas don’t compete with each other, rather the personal and personalisation compliment each other.
Things that are personal and personalised aren’t the same thing, but when your sales pitch contains both, it helps you have the better conversations that make customers for life.
To learn more about how ActivePipe can help you automate personalised comms, speak to one of our automation experts.
