Member-only story

Dear [FIRST_NAME]: Why Personalized Marketing Still Feels Like Spam

Mark Schaefer
4 min readJan 13, 2025

Too short for a blog post, too interesting to ignore, here are a few observations from the world of marketing, and beyond.

Talk to me

It seems like everywhere I turn marketers are touting the benefits of personalized marketing, and especially how AI is leading the way. My question is, where is it???

I find marketing as impersonal and intrusive as ever.

Today, a guy left me a message on LinkedIn: “I’m trying to connect on a more human way on LinkedIn and created this personal video for you.” I clicked out of curiosity. It was a cookie-cutter video. He had simply created more spam — only in video form.

Here’s what most companies think personalized marketing is:
“Dear [FIRST_NAME], we noticed you might be interested in [RECENTLY_VIEWED_PRODUCT]…”

Here’s what it actually is: Spam with a smile

The irony is that “personalized marketing”-if it means just slapping a name at the beginning of an email-is still impersonal. It’s artificial intimacy that’s a signal for me to “ignore.”

The technology exists for businesses to be truly helpful and personal, so are we just lazy? The era of true marketing personalization is still ahead of…

--

--

Mark Schaefer
Mark Schaefer

Written by Mark Schaefer

Keynote speaker, marketing strategy consultant, Rutgers U faculty and author of 10 books including KNOWN, Marketing Rebellion, and Belonging to the Brand!

Responses (1)