Should you try to personalize your content? Is it even possible?

Much of the content advice you’ll read says yes (while acknowledging how hard it is to do).

But a recent article in Marketing Week proclaimed personalization unachievable.

The authors cite two reasons to give up on personalization. The first is that real personalization is impossible because it assumes you have perfect data on every customer. The second “fatal flaw” (as they call it) is that personalization doesn’t work even if you have perfect data on everyone.Continue Reading

One of my favorite scenes in a movie is from Men In Black. Jay, played by Will Smith, is a new “man in black” and has just dealt with his first aliens. He asks his boss Kay, played by Tommy Lee Jones, why they don’t just tell the world that aliens exist. Kay says humans simply couldn’t handle it. Then, he adds this:

Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll ‘know’ tomorrow.

He perfectly encapsulates that even though we humans can intellectually comprehend something new, it’s often difficult for us to take it in and make rational changes.
Continue Reading