It may not be "comforting" for the individual.  We're currently doing some research on the value of personal information and the business benefits to organisations of protecting such data.  There's a discussion document at:

Business case for investing in proactive privacy protection
http://watsonhall.com/privacy.protection

and if anyone has views from their own marketing experiences, they'd be welcome.

Colin

I think Andrew's response actually shows how important it is to keep things 'personal'. The assumption that seemed to be made earlier, possibly by all of us prior to his response, was that the system was automated. However, it is obvious from his reply "I guessed it would be you" that it was being carried out by a human being!

I think for all of us the fact that there is a human at the end of the 'connection' makes a huge difference in how we respond to an approach as potential customers, and this is important when looking at behavioural advertising as advertisers. The furore about Phorm showed how many internet users feel about the concept of their privacy being invaded in order to market/advertise products. Yet, as marketers, it is apparent what a difference it makes to the customer if they feel that they are being contacted by a person rather than a system.

The same works with link building and many other SEO/SEM/IM techniques. A personal email that shows an interest and knowledge about the person/company/website nearly always yields a far better result than a templated email sent out to scattergun targets.

The BIG difference in all of this (again, as with umpteen other discussions, blogs and so on here on Econsultancy and elsewhere) is surely between B2C "marketing", where big budgets and big audiences thrashed out the techniques (and jargon), and B2B "sales" where people/companies are only just learning how to wean themselves off the car + phone as the only communication tools available to staff – as Lindsey is saying, surely?

The former is a "machine", like a vending machine, and none of us expects to walk past one of those and have our names shouted out, or our mobiles burst into life saying “Special Offer Inside for you Neil!”, in best Minority Report fashion.

But the latter is much more like a visit to a trade exhibition, where you might well expect to have your visitor badge scanned and, whether or not you specifically left your business card and asked for further contact, get a follow-up something, at least suggesting they hoped you enjoyed the visit, and found something of interest?

We’ve got the first couple of clients now actually taking this whole prospect data thing very seriously (again, at last!) so that they are weighing up whether it is of a good enough quality to warrant the MD (Top Seller) of a global supplier lifting the phone to talk to the MD (In Charge of Sales Training) of a global prospect. But of course they’ve tried that before, and all cold-calls are banned anyway. So his close, personal pre-sales assistant does the work digitally/online instead, and starts canvassing 60 possible “hot prospects”, with whatever variety of emails (or marketing collateral) are deemed relevant/enticing enough, or even seeking them out individually on discussions, just like this – and getting the MD (Sales) to join in.

Any website visits resulting from that have now become very serious, and very personal, and indicative of a much higher level of mutual commitment than simply wandering past a shop window. So knowing that one, of sixty prospects, was trying to check out the website for "Digital Selling" course availability for 50 sales staff, and the pricing for that, can generate the most exquisite and helpful of email follow-ups, thereby also demonstrating exactly how digital selling can/should be undertaken.

And although the numbers of people in the audiences vary dramatically between B2C Marketing and B2B Selling, so do the value of the products or services being discussed. At the one end a £30 watch, at the other a £300,000 contract.