Three key ways to make recommendations work…

At the risk of verging into Fred Wilson territory here, you’ve got to love the new recommendations last.fm sent me today. First, the video last.fm recommended: “Title and Registration” by Death Cab for Cutie.

Ah, Death Cab’s stream of consciousness, heart-broken brilliance. If I could write songs like that, well, I’d still be writing songs. Anyhoo… regret is Ben Gibbard’s stock in trade, not mine. Here’s why last.fm’s recommendations work, and yours can, too:

1. Send recommendations at the right time. Saturdays are a good time to send people like me music videos. I don’t have a lot of leisure time during the week. Sending recommendations for music on Tuesday would go unnoticed. Sending recommendations for business books on Sundays, likewise. Match your offer to your customers’ lives.
2. Make sure they actually match your customers’ desires. Seriously. Amazon makes too many recommendations based on gifts I’ve bought. Oh sure. I could tell Amazon to ignore them for recommedations, but that drives me nuts when I send those packages to other addresses and get the damned things gift-wrapped. Maybe it’s just me.
3. Send them to me, particularly when I’ve been out of touch for a while. Last.fm has just started this new service, and it coincides with the fact I haven’t spent much time on last.fm lately (work has been particularly busy). Now, I’ve heard a great song I hadn’t heard in a while and find myself wanting to buy a bunch of music from Amazon’s new download service (giving associate props to last.fm, of course). Funny, how that works.

If you’re going to offer recommendations, take the time to do it well. And, as always, learn from the folks doing it well.