Pretty much the only text messages I ever receive are debit orders flying out of the account (disheartening), delivery updates from online shopping outlets (more money gone, but that retail itch scratched), and around election time, the DA’s scaremongering about the great dangers of the ANC and the EFF (we get it, Mmusi).

There’s also the odd loan or insurance offer, but not much in the way of targeted promotions that are designed specifically for me.

That could be about to change, though, as more and more businesses use the information gained from loyalty programmes for ‘micro marketing’ purposes.

This from Moneyweb:

Don’t be startled if you start receiving surprisingly well targeted ‘special promotions’ via text message from your favourite retail chain. Say, for instance, you are fond of a specific brand of coffee, but instead of retailing at R100 a jar, it’s now selling for R76 for that day only.

For retailers to promote via text message is not ground-breaking. Targeted promotions, however, are very new for the sector.

This is where the use of information about you by retail chains – such as your name, gender, the size of your average spend and what you usually purchase – comes into play. Stores are increasingly using this ‘personal’ data to design promotions for specific consumers.

You see, you aren’t the only person benefitting from ‘cashback’ rewards and loyalty points and all those other goodies you get when swiping your card at the till.

In years gone by, retailers would simply stock their shelves with goodies that they assumed customers were after, but there’s now a wide range of information at their fingertips:

Information derived from loyalty programmes such as Pick n Pay’s Smart Shopper and the Clicks ClubCard, are being used to figure out who is walking through the doors and what they are buying.

Pick n Pay’s Smart Shopper has seven million members, and the group says in its annual report that it “is providing more personalised value than ever before”. For the 2019 financial year, it offered R6 billion in discounts through the programme.

Shoprite doesn’t have a loyalty programme as such, but mobile apps for its Shoprite and Checkers chains do offer information to customers about what is on special at their nearest stores.

This is just the beginning for the group. Shoprite Group CEO Pieter Engelbrecht, speaking at a presentation of the group’s year-end results earlier this week, said he wanted to mine the 27 petabytes of data to move to more targeted promotions.

Look, I suppose the positive here is that least you won’t receive text message marketing for goods and services that are of zero interest to you.

Then again, there’s also a notable downside:

It may take time for South African shoppers to question how much of their privacy they are giving up in exchange for that ‘special’ jar of coffee, but that is a story for another day.

At this point, I just assume that every big corporation already knows every intimate detail of my life, although I’m not dumb enough to post the Instagram privacy hoax hogwash going around.

Happy shopping, and expect to be kept abreast of specials you may or may not want to know about in the not-too-distant future.

[source:moneyweb]