I received an email a week or so ago from a software company I regularly buy from, although in a desultory fashion. I like the way their various applications integrate. It’s not the cheapest out there, but far from the dearest. I subscribe to their bulk email marketing list but this email stood out from their norm.

I was addressed in the manner I liked, using my name, but not too personal. They called me Mr. I cannot remember if I informed them of my preferences or whether, over the nine years I’ve used their products, they have worked it out via the returns from their email marketing software.

They were offering a particular add-on to one of their products, a quite clever little device. I use the main bit of software for work and this extra bit was promoted as something that would speed up productivity.

I have cracked their email marketing system. I normally wait for a period of time in order to buy something at about the lowest price they would offer it at. I have another email address where I subscribe to their email marketing list and so I find out when I have been precipitous. These times are now few.

This particular email captured me. I bought the software at what will be, in all probability, nearly twice the price it will drop to in 11 months. That was some trick.

The salutation was just the first step. They made the email seem as if it was aimed at me individually, and given how much I write on bulk email marketing, that is another clever move. They mentioned the main software that the application works with, saying that the last update I had bought suits it perfectly.

The email went on about the other applications the add-on will work with, but only those I had bought from them were named. One, which I’ve had for around four years without updating, was highlighted as ‘limiting the facilities available’, although it did not go into detail of what these limitations might be. I await another marketing email for the upgrade.

I am not silly. I know that the identical email went out to everyone who has the same purchasing history as me, and those who have one slightly different would have got a slightly different email.

I was impressed by how clever it was and particularly that it changed my habitual buying method. For some reason I became impatient to have this little add-on and bought it at its full price.

This is personalisation brought to a high level. There wasn’t an aspect of the email that wasn’t relevant to me. All the features of the software that would help me decide to buy it were mentioned and those that were not, were not. I didn’t have to seek out any further information to know what it would do, whether it would be of any use to me and if it was worth the price. It convinced me enough to break the buying habits of some nine years.
This was bulk email marketing at its most sophisticated, and it is within your reach.