Before we dive in, a quick note: I’m a passionate user and proud affiliate of GoHighLevel. The advice in this article is born from my own experience using automation to scale my businesses and help hundreds of other entrepreneurs do the same. I recommend GoHighLevel because I use it every single day and have seen the incredible results firsthand. My goal is to be transparent and, above all, helpful.
Let’s be honest. Your customers think you’re a robot. They think you’re sending them the same generic, one-size-fits-all marketing messages that you’re sending to everyone else. And you know what? They’re probably right. You’re so focused on scaling your business that you’ve forgotten that you’re talking to actual human beings. It’s time to stop being a robot and start being a person. It’s time to embrace the power of personalization.
Key Takeaways
The “Un-Customer” is Real: Modern customers are overwhelmed by generic marketing and have been trained by services like Amazon and Netflix to expect deep personalization as the bare minimum.
Personalization is a Necessity, Not a Luxury: Failing to personalize is a signal to customers that you don’t understand or care about them. Data shows 84% of customers say being treated like a person, not a number, is crucial for winning their business.
Be a “Matchmaker,” Not a “Merchant”: The fable of Elena and Samuel illustrates the difference between selling products (a merchant) and creating moments (a matchmaker). True loyalty comes from building relationships and understanding the “who” (the customer) behind the “what” (the transaction).
Build a “Personalization Engine”: To personalize at scale, you need a system. The post identifies four key components:
- Unified Customer Profile: A single view combining demographic, transactional, behavioral, and qualitative data.
- Behavioral Tracking: Using “digital body language” (like page visits or cart abandonment) to understand intent.
- Dynamic Content: Changing website or email content (like headlines or product recommendations) based on user data.
- Multi-Channel Automation: Delivering a consistent, personalized experience across email, SMS, social media, and your website.
Start Simple: You can begin by segmenting your audience into key groups (like “first-time customers” or “VIPs”), creating unique workflows for each, and then testing and optimizing over time.
Tools Enable Philosophy: A platform like GoHighLevel can serve as a “digital ledger” (like Samuel’s) to manage customer relationships and automate personalization, turning the philosophy into a practical reality.
The Age of the Un-Customer
We’re living in the age of the un-customer. Your prospects are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages every day. They’ve become experts at tuning out the noise. They’ve built up an immunity to generic, impersonal marketing. If you want to break through the clutter, you have to do something different. You have to make it personal.
This isn’t just a catchy phrase; it’s a fundamental shift in consumer behavior. The modern customer has been trained by the likes of Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify to expect a personalized experience. They expect you to know who they are, what they like, and what they need, often before they do. To them, personalization isn’t a delightful surprise; it’s the bare minimum. When you fail to provide it, you’re not just missing an opportunity; you’re actively signaling that you don’t understand or care about them. You’re treating them like a number on a spreadsheet, and they can feel it.
The data on this is overwhelmingly clear. The latest “State of the Connected Customer” report from Salesforce found that 84% of customers say that being treated like a person, not a number, is very important to winning their business [1]. Furthermore, 73% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. When you send a generic, one-size-fits-all email, you are failing to meet the expectations of nearly three-quarters of your potential customers. You are, in effect, telling them that you don’t care enough to get to know them. In the age of the un-customer, that’s a death sentence.
The Fable of the Generic Gift Giver
Let’s talk about Elena. Elena was the proud owner of an online gift shop called “Gifts for All.” She had a wide selection of products, competitive prices, and a clean, professional website. She was doing everything by the book. She ran Facebook ads, she collected emails, and she sent out a weekly newsletter with a generic “10% off” coupon. Her business was doing okay, but it wasn’t great. She was working tirelessly, but her growth had stalled.
A few blocks away from her small office was a tiny, old-fashioned gift shop called “The Thoughtful Giver.” It was run by an elderly man named Samuel. Samuel’s shop didn’t even have a proper website, just a simple page with his phone number. And yet, he had a fiercely loyal following of customers who would never dream of shopping anywhere else. Elena was baffled. What was his secret?
One day, her curiosity got the better of her. She walked into The Thoughtful Giver, pretending to be a customer. The shop was cozy and smelled of lavender and old books. Samuel greeted her with a warm, genuine smile. “How can I help you today?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a gift for my sister,” Elena said. “Her birthday is next week.”
Samuel’s eyes lit up. “Ah, a birthday! Tell me about your sister. What does she love?”
Elena, taken aback by the personal question, described her sister’s love for gardening and classic literature. Samuel listened intently, nodding and asking thoughtful follow-up questions. Then, he disappeared into the back of the shop and emerged with a beautifully crafted leather-bound journal and a set of antique botanical prints. It was the perfect gift. It was as if he had read her mind.
As he was wrapping the gift, Elena confessed who she was. “Samuel,” she said, “I have to ask. How do you do it? I have a website with thousands of visitors, but I can’t seem to create the kind of loyalty you have.”
Samuel chuckled. “My dear,” he said, “you are a merchant. I am a matchmaker. You sell products. I create moments. You see your customers as transactions. I see them as people.”
He then showed her his “system.” It was a simple, leather-bound ledger. For each of his regular customers, he had a page. He would jot down their birthdays, their anniversaries, their children’s names, their hobbies, and their past purchases. A few weeks before a special occasion, he would send them a handwritten note with a few carefully selected gift ideas. He wasn’t just selling gifts; he was helping his customers be more thoughtful.
“You see,” he said, “I don’t have a marketing department. I have a relationship department. My customers don’t feel like they’re being sold to; they feel like they’re being cared for.”
Elena left the shop that day with a profound realization. She had been so focused on the “what” of her business—the products, the website, the marketing—that she had completely forgotten the “who.” She had been treating her customers like a faceless, monolithic crowd, when in reality, they were all individuals, just like her sister, with their own unique stories, passions, and needs.
That night, she went back to her GoHighLevel account, but she saw it with new eyes. It wasn’t just a tool for blasting out emails; it was her own digital version of Samuel’s ledger. It was a tool for building relationships, at scale. She started creating segments for her customers based on their past purchases. She built automated workflows to send personalized recommendations for birthdays and anniversaries. She stopped sending generic coupons and started sending thoughtful suggestions.
It took time, but slowly, things started to change. Her open rates and click-through rates soared. Her customer loyalty and repeat purchase rate went through the roof. “Gifts for All” was no longer just a generic gift shop; it was a personalized gifting service. Elena had learned the secret of The Thoughtful Giver. She had learned that personalization wasn’t a tactic; it was a philosophy. It was the art of treating every customer like they were your only customer.
The Personalization Engine: Your Secret to Winning Hearts and Minds
Elena’s story is a powerful reminder that in the age of the un-customer, personalization is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. But you don’t need a leather-bound ledger and a team of calligraphers to do it. You just need a modern marketing automation platform like GoHighLevel and a commitment to seeing your customers as people, not just data points. You need to build a personalization engine.
Here are the four critical components of a powerful personalization engine in GoHighLevel:
1. A Unified Customer Profile
You can’t personalize what you don’t know. The foundation of any good personalization strategy is a single, unified view of your customer. This means breaking down the silos between your different data sources and bringing all your customer information into one place. In GoHighLevel, every contact has a unified profile that includes:
- Demographic Data: Name, location, age, gender, etc.
- Transactional Data: Past purchases, average order value, lifetime value, etc.
- Behavioral Data: Website pages visited, emails opened, links clicked, videos watched, etc.
- Qualitative Data: Survey responses, support ticket history, customer feedback, etc.
When you have all this information in one place, you can start to see the whole person, not just a collection of isolated data points. You can start to understand their needs, their preferences, and their intent.
2. Behavioral Tracking
This is the real-time data that fuels your personalization engine. Using tracking pixels and cookies, you can monitor how your customers are interacting with your brand across all your digital touchpoints. This isn’t about being creepy; it’s about being observant. It’s about listening to your customers’ digital body language. When a customer visits your pricing page three times in a week, they’re telling you something. When they watch a specific product demo video to completion, they’re telling you something. When they abandon a shopping cart with a specific item in it, they’re telling you something. In GoHighLevel, you can track all of this behavior and use it to trigger personalized workflows.
3. Dynamic Content
This is where the magic happens. Dynamic content is the ability to change the content of your emails, your landing pages, and your website based on who is viewing it. This goes way beyond just using your customer’s first name in the subject line. With GoHighLevel, you can:
- Show different product recommendations in an email based on a customer’s past purchases.
- Change the call-to-action in an email based on a customer’s stage in the buyer’s journey.
- Display different testimonials on a sales page based on a customer’s industry.
- Show different headlines on a landing page based on the ad they clicked to get there.
This is how you create a truly one-to-one experience. This is how you make every customer feel like you’ve created this message just for them.
4. Multi-Channel Automation
Your customers don’t live in a single channel. They move seamlessly between email, social media, SMS, and your website. Your personalization strategy needs to do the same. GoHighLevel allows you to create automated workflows that span across all these channels, delivering a consistent, personalized experience no matter where your customer is. For example, if a customer abandons a cart, you can send them an email reminder, show them a targeted ad on Facebook with the exact product they abandoned, and even send them an SMS message with a special discount. This creates a powerful, omnipresent brand experience that keeps you top-of-mind and makes it incredibly easy for your customers to take the next step.
How to Get Started with Personalization in GoHighLevel
Ready to stop being a robot and start being a rockstar? Here’s a simple, three-step plan to get started with personalization in GoHighLevel:
- Start with Segmentation: Don’t try to personalize everything at once. Start by segmenting your audience into a few key groups based on their interests, their behavior, or their purchase history. For example, you could create segments for “first-time customers,” “repeat customers,” and “VIP customers.”
- Create Personalized Workflows: For each segment, create a unique workflow that delivers a personalized experience. For example, your “first-time customers” might receive a welcome sequence that introduces them to your brand, while your “VIP customers” might receive exclusive offers and early access to new products.
- Test and Optimize: Personalization is an ongoing process. Constantly test new ideas, track your results, and optimize your workflows for better performance.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: Why is generic, “one-size-fits-all” marketing failing? A: We are in the “Age of the Un-Customer,” where prospects are bombarded with messages and have become immune to impersonal marketing. They now expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations, and generic messages signal that you don’t.
Q: What is the main idea of “The Fable of the Generic Gift Giver”? A: The fable contrasts two business owners: Elena, who focused on transactions (“merchant”), and Samuel, who focused on relationships (“matchmaker”). Samuel built fierce loyalty by using a simple ledger to remember personal details (hobbies, birthdays) to help his customers be more thoughtful. The moral is that focusing on the “who” (the individual customer) is more powerful than focusing only on the “what” (the product).
Q: What are the four components of a “personalization engine” mentioned in the article? A: The four components are:
- A Unified Customer Profile: Having all customer data in one place.
- Behavioral Tracking: Monitoring how customers interact with your brand (e.g., pages visited, links clicked).
- Dynamic Content: The ability to change website or email content to match the specific viewer.
- Multi-Channel Automation: Creating automated, personalized workflows across email, SMS, and other channels.
Q: What is “dynamic content”? A: Dynamic content is the practice of changing the content of your emails, landing pages, or website based on who is viewing it. Examples include showing different product recommendations based on past purchases or displaying a different headline on a landing page based on the ad the person clicked.
Q: What is the simple, three-step plan to get started with personalization? A: The article suggests this plan:
- Start with Segmentation: Divide your audience into a few key groups (e.g., first-time customers, repeat customers, VIPs).
- Create Personalized Workflows: Build a unique, automated experience for each segment.
- Test and Optimize: Continuously track your results and refine your workflows for better performance.
Q: What tool does the author recommend for this? A: The author, Jonathan Mast, is a user and affiliate partner of GoHighLevel. He recommends the platform as the tool to build this “personalization engine” and manage customer relationships at scale.
Stop Talking to the Crowd. Start Talking to the Person.
It’s time to stop shouting at the crowd and start having a conversation with the person. It’s time to treat your customers like the unique individuals they are. It’s time to build a personalization engine that will win their hearts, their minds, and their business.
Ready to stop being a robot and start being a rockstar? Grab your 30-day free trial of GoHighLevel and see how easy it is to create a personalized customer journey for every lead. Your customers will thank you for it.
About the Author
Jonathan Mast is an AI-Powered Topical Authority Strategist and the founder of White Beard Strategies and Valorous Circle. With over 30 years of digital expertise, Jonathan has a proven track record of scaling businesses to 7 figures and helping over 400 clients save time, increase profits, and deliver more value through automation and AI. As a passionate user and affiliate partner of GoHighLevel, he is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs break free from the daily grind and build businesses that work for them.
References
[1] Salesforce. (2023). State of the Connected Customer, 5th Edition. https://www.salesforce.com/content/dam/web/en_us/www/documents/research/salesforce-state-of-the-connected-customer-5th-ed.pdf
