Understand Your Buyer > How To Lose The Sale > Fake Personalisation

 

 

What is it?

Not everything is as it seems, some “personal” emails/DMs and even videos are mass produced and fake.

I recently had an outreach email where the person didn’t name check me at all, using the term “buddy” and using vague platitudes to pretend he knew who I was and how he could help.

 

Why does it work?

Fake personalisation has the REVERSE effect of proper personalisation.

Proper personalisation exists to let your buyer know you have invested time and energy in communicating with them. You care about them and they have your attention.

FAKE personalisation (when discovered)  makes you feel insignificant. It’s just that this person is trying to be clever and pretend they are investing time and energy when they aren’t. AKA lying.

 

How can you use it?

 

Hypothetical Example:

A marketing consultant sends out 500 mass emails with the greeting:

“Hey buddy, I’ve been following your business for a while and I think I can help.”

The recipient immediately realises this is fake personalisation because:

• There’s no mention of their name or business.

• The email contains vague statements like “you’re doing great work” without specifics.

• The same message appears on LinkedIn, word-for-word, to mutual contacts.

Instead of feeling valued, the recipient feels misled and unimportant – leading to distrust and a quick delete.

Proper personalisation would be something like:

“Hi Sarah, I saw your recent post about launching your new eco-friendly skincare line. I have a case study with a similar brand where we increased their e-commerce sales by 37% in 3 months – would you like to see it?”

Here, real personalisation builds trust and connection – while fake personalisation destroys it.

 

See also

• Bad Automation
• 60+ ways to LOSE the sale