13 January 2009
To compete effectively in the marketplace of the future, your business will need to focus more strongly on “The Market of One", or at least what I like to call micro markets of groups of ten or twenty, by offering ultra-customized, real-time, personalized content and services.

To compete effectively in the marketplace of the future, your business will need to focus more strongly on “The Market of One", or at least what I like to call micro markets of groups of ten or twenty, by offering ultra-customized, real-time, personalized content and services. In today's market of "Me", providing custom tailored advertising, services, and customized products will become imperative to the success of your business.

It's Personal

Personalization is all about empowering customers which means going further than lip service and the noise of crowd sourcing. Primarily, it's about listening to customers and providing an experinece tailored to them. In todays environment I've seen many larger corporations struggle with the concept of personalization. eBay for example, has proven to be set in its ways time and time again with its canned responses to customer service questions. The "Me" crowd is interested in one-to-one connections not one-to-robo-form communication.

Follow The Leader

In a recent Web 2.0 Expo held in New York, Jay Adelson of digg talked about the future of the company. He explains that with the digg of the future, instead of showing users the most popular stories, the future digg will make a guess about what a "Me" likes based on information mined from the demographic veins of social networks. This approach essentially turns every "Me" into a big Venn diagram of interests, and send them stories to match their interests.

The Hyper-Personalized Future

I'm confident that in the near future we will be utilizing web marketing strategies to become hyper-focused on "The Market of One" which will allow advertisers to promote hyper-focused messages to willing customers. Once you take away the idea of lowest common denominator mass market advertising and focus it down to "Me" and customized by "Me" the experience becomes much more pleasant. Once the "Me" start to see ads for things they're genuinely interested in, there is a much higher probability that the "Me" are likely to pay attention and in turn convert into buyers.

It Gets Physical

Now, taking the concept of hyper-personalization and think about how that will ultimately translate into the physical world. Technologies like RFID, Bluetooth, and mobile phones, make it easier than ever to bring that hyper-personalized experience to our physical surroundings. If a person with a Bluetooth enabled device passes by a billboard or some other advertising vehicle it's entirely possible that technology and personalization could kick in and generate a hyper-focused experience tuned to that "Me". Add in Geo Location and you can take that idea even further by proactively informing the "Me" of solutions to known wants and needs in the general area. For example, lets say that I've made it known that I am interested in a new flat screen television. I'm in my local mall and my geo location enabled phone informs me of a great deal on the Panasonic Flat screen that I've looked at in the past at the Best Buy store. Not only that but also points me in the direction of a Best Buy expert in the field who also has a geo location enabled device.

In closing I will leave you with a quote that I feel sums up the times we are in. It's not from some great philosopher or novelist, although he does have a book. It's a quote from american football player Terrell Owens when speaking to reporters in a post-game interview he reportedly said... "I Love Me Some Me" and even trademarked the quote late 2007. Now go out and give some love to "Me".