Calling your customer ‘babe’ is taking personalisation a step too far
After Jessica Hodkinson fell victim to an over-familiar EDM ambush, she wondered if marketers might have finally crossed the personalisation line.
Last week, I received an email with the following subject line: ‘Babe, those shoes you wanted are now on sale.’
Even though it caught my attention, it also made me cringe and feel a little uncomfortable.
So I decided to post about it on LinkedIn.
My issues with the ‘babe’ situation were threefold. Firstly, I simply don’t like the word. It’s grating, and is something I can only just about deal with when a friend addresses me in this way. A brand will never be my friend, so I can’t give it a similar pass.
It wasn’t just ‘babe’ I had a problem with – the retargeting was all off, too. The shoes weren’t the ones I wanted, so the attempt at coming across like a mate felt even more clunky.
If you’re going to try and act buddy-buddy with your customers, at least make sure you’re offering them something they actually wanted in the first place.
After all, your friend would know that you didn’t actually like those shoes, wouldn’t they?
Finally, like it or not, babe is a gendered word. It presumes all females talk to each other in this way, and has the potential to turn a lot of customers who are sensitive to this kind of thing off – myself included.
When crafting an email subject line, it’s important to try and capture attention in as few words as possible. This isn’t always an easy job.
In order to succeed, you need to know your audience. To do this, marketers need to avoid alienating those who may not be familiar with colloquial or unnatural language – like ‘babe’, for example.
So why are brands trying quite so hard to be our friends?
As the market becomes increasingly cluttered and we hear more and more about the importance of personalisation, marketers are trying harder than ever before to connect with their customers on a personal level, and make them feel more valued.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for this approach in theory, but somehow ‘babe’ seems to take things to the next level. It reads a that generic girly way of greeting someone, which outside of teen movies doesn’t actually exist. All it does is make me, as their consumers, think they don’t actually know me at all.
Ultimately, the reminder for marketers here is the importance of language. If one small word has the potential to turn customers off for good, then you’d better make sure you’re paying attention to every single word you use to communicate.
Using smart and witty one liners can be a risky game. Sure, you might find bold headlines lead to more initial clicks, but are you really going to forge a genuine relationship through shock tactics and gratingly over-familiar language?
A/B testing is a great way to get around the uncertainty.
And when all is said and done, ask yourself the question: would you do the same in person? Or it is easier to push the boundaries a step too far because you’re behind a screen and can’t see them?
After all, would you dare call a customer babe if she walked into your shop?
Jessica Hodkinson is a content marketer and blogs at www.onlineprpixie.com.
When I walk into clothing stores I do find that some shop attendants do call me babe, now I just try avoiding these stores and going online because of their shop attendants are too much. I recently received one edm that had their headline as “For The Cool Girls”. Really? Is this primary school in 2007? Either way, their branding seems to work with the young and impressionable kids these days considering all their competitors (probably the one that called you babe) stock the same items $20 cheaper.
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I would have immediately removed myself from their mailing list if I received an EDM like this.
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Babe, did you wanna go out for a cheeky rose’ after work?
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Obviously not enough on your mind or your desk to spend time being outraged, doing the analysis and then writing about it. Majority still rules and it’s a term heard everywhere. Lecturing about its failure as a marketing salutation is creating seriousness from nothing. Let it go. Let it go.
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Thanks for your comment Lucy. I think the example you share, clearly shows that they have grouped all customers together instead of segmenting and targeting clearly. ‘Babe’ actually came from a higher end brand, which is probably why it shocked me more.
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Sorry Jessica, don’t agree with you on this one. Using colloquial phrases such as “babe” gives a brand some personality. I hate those generic EDM’s with subject lines like “50% Sale Inside” or “Great Deals Not To Be Missed!”. They turn me off and make me unsubscribe instantly because they are generic and boring.
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Agree with you Jess, the only thing more annoying than a work associate addressing me as babe (or doll, in one young man’s case) and then signing off with and ‘x’, would be a brand addressing me as babe – in-store, via email or just about anywhere.
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