It really is a low-cost high-ROI touch, and is applicable to many, many of the types of things we do as programmers. I'm amazed that people spend umpteen hours customizing their resume and cover letter and can't bother to make a web page for the decisionmaker. What's up with that? With your MVC framework of choice you can take a few building blocks, customize them on a per-target basis, snap them together, and get feedback on what works. Trackable and A/B testable, too, although if you're savvy enough to do this you're probably going to get hired before that A/B test returns statistically significant data.
(Although you can always make "Hey decisionmaker, I am A/B testing this page." a selling point for yourself. It is theatre which suggests to the decisionmaker that you're the kind of guy who would A/B test his freaking resume.)
You can do this for pitch emails, for contacts with the media ("Hey ABC News we prepared a press kit just for you!", "Hey New York Times we prepared a press kit just for you!", etc), for pitches to bloggers (take the Peldi email and twist the knob to 11 by customizing a post on why Bob's File Format Blog's readers would benefit from hearing about your service), for your YC applications, for resumes, for requests for contract work, etc etc.
I think I remember having an example of one which would transition potential investors from the elevator pitch in the email to a deeper engagement with your company at a web page you control (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814827 ), and from then it is just a wee bit more work to get them to actually talk to you. Sure beats doing what everyone else is doing, since what everyone else is doing fails 90% of the time almost by definition.
(Although you can always make "Hey decisionmaker, I am A/B testing this page." a selling point for yourself. It is theatre which suggests to the decisionmaker that you're the kind of guy who would A/B test his freaking resume.)
You can do this for pitch emails, for contacts with the media ("Hey ABC News we prepared a press kit just for you!", "Hey New York Times we prepared a press kit just for you!", etc), for pitches to bloggers (take the Peldi email and twist the knob to 11 by customizing a post on why Bob's File Format Blog's readers would benefit from hearing about your service), for your YC applications, for resumes, for requests for contract work, etc etc.
I think I remember having an example of one which would transition potential investors from the elevator pitch in the email to a deeper engagement with your company at a web page you control (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814827 ), and from then it is just a wee bit more work to get them to actually talk to you. Sure beats doing what everyone else is doing, since what everyone else is doing fails 90% of the time almost by definition.