Message Tailoring

Message tailoring is the ability to target an individual or group of individuals with a health message based on information known about that individual or group in order to elicit a change in behavior or activity. Marketers and advertisers in the corporate world have used this tactic for decades. They learned that something as simple as including a person's name in a direct mail letter, for instance, would increase the chance that the letter was read over a similar letter without personalization. The success of marketing efforts such as these led health communicators to adopt tailoring with health messages to more effectively reach and influence segments of the population.

The use of health message tailoring was led by the efforts of individuals such as professors Victor ...