Adaptive Marketing

I have nine different bags that correspond to the different types of clients I work with from time to time. Most people, when I tell them this, think I have some form of fashion ADD. I tell them it’s one of my many forays into adaptive marketing.

When you meet someone, you make an incredible number of assumptions about them based on whatever information you have at your disposal. For first impressions, there’s no better way to influence an ambiguous situation than by designing that interaction in a way that conveys the things you want to communicate. Given that you only have control over a limited part of that situation, it makes sense to harness that control to nudge others’ impressions towards wherever you’d like them to go.

I have nine different bags because people expect different things. There’s no real reason for nine instead of eight or ten, other than that I simply haven’t yet run across a situation that didn’t match with one of them.

Beyond bags and briefcases, however, adaptive marketing manifests itself in a whole arsenal of other touch points. Some people love e-mail. Others love handwritten notes. Some like meeting outside. Others will hate you if you’re not in an office. The difference between a good relationship and a great one lies in finding a way to remember and make use of this knowledge to make people smile.

In my address book, next to each person’s name and number is a little entry that has his or her favorite Starbucks drink. We bring all of our clients their favorite drinks each time we meet with them, free of charge. What makes it special isn’t the fact that it’s free or from Starbucks, however, but that it’s theirs.

Now, more than ever, the web enables us to create an interface that adapts to our users like never before. Does one of your users use feature X all the time without even touching feature Y? Make feature X more accessible and easier for them to use and tuck feature Y away where it will never bother them again. Simple analytics and interface analysis can feed into a world in which every interface reconfigures itself completely to suit the tastes and expectations of the user.

That’s part of the biggest thing we do here at Blend. We adapt interactions to suit the people on either side of them: with a product, with a service, or with an experience. It’s not so much what they interact with, but how and designing a better how is our quest to Blend It Better.

• By Patrick Widen

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About The Author

Patrick Widen

Patrick began his career in design at the age of twelve, later starting his design firm, Foozoo Design, while still a senior in high school. In the rebellious years of his youth, he virtually ignored his high school curriculum in favor of pursuing his own academic career in marketing, psychology, and design. 400 books, three companies, and a cocktail of interesting experiences later he opened the doors of Blend to help companies dive into design and create products, services, and experiences that make people smile. When he's not working, Patrick is also student at Vanderbilt where he is exploring the connections between neuroscience, design, marketing, and economics. It is his hope that through these connections he will soon begin to find the answers to the questions that he believes will change the world for the better and make each and every inch of it a better place for the people that live there.