Beyond Name Personalization: Tactics That Work

If you look around you, personalization is everywhere. It’s in your e-mail inbox. It’s your name on a catalog. It’s the customized coupons printed on your grocery store receipt. But what makes personalization actually work? This is a critical question for marketers, especially if they are going to put that personalization into print.

One of the golden rules of today’s personalization is that, especially in the case of print, it goes beyond the obvious. We can do so much more than putting a person’s name on a direct mail piece
these days. By moving beyond simple personalization and basic demographics driven imagery, 1:1 communications become that much more effective.

Let’s look at some of the best practices that make your personalized print pieces stand out from the clutter.

1. Be remarkable.

As one marketer once put it, “You have to be absolutely remarkable to make a difference.” Good isn’t good enough anymore. You have to be great. This means putting together outstanding creative, a terrific pitch, a compelling offer and everything else that goes into great marketing. Personalization should never stand alone. It should be part of a larger strategy of exceptional marketing, where all of the elements work together to create an elevated response.

2. Start with good data.
When it comes to successful marketing, your success is only as good as your list. For this reason, having a clean, relevant database is half the battle. If you’ve never run your data through the National Change of Address (NCOA) system and the Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS), this is an important first step. Every time you interact with your customers, keep that data updated. Collect additional data. Gather transactional information. Include information gathered from personalized URL campaigns, Web site feedback or customer service contacts. Centralize your data so that you have the maximum flexibility in your marketing options.

3. Use personalization to make each marketing contact relevant.
Once you have customer data, use it! If your customer has taken vacations to Hawaii, don’t promote vacations to the Arctic. If you lease automobiles, trigger a personalized postcard promoting a new lease in advance of the expiration of the old one. Before sending out any new campaign, ask yourself what information exists in your database that would make the customer communication more relevant. If that data doesn’t exist today, ask what information you could gather that would provide it for next time. Then put a strategy in place to get it.

4. Track, measure and improve campaigns over time.
How do you know what’s working and what isn’t if you’re not tracking the results? Don’t just rely on response rates to tell you whether the campaign is working. Use additional measures like the cost per response, revenue per sale and return on investment (ROI). This will allow you to compare apples to apples, across multiple campaigns, and see where your marketing dollars are most effectively spent.

These best practices are basic but profoundly effective. Put them into use, and see how your results soar!

Does Multi-Channel Marketing Really Work?

According to research from InfoTrends, between 247 and 3,000 marketing messages bombard the average consumer each day. How do you make sure your message is the one that cuts through the clutter? Increasingly, the answer is multi-channel marketing.

InfoTrends’ research project, “Multi-Channel Communications Measurement & Benchmarking” showed what many marketers already know, more channels equals greater response. The study, which surveyed more than 200 marketing executives, found that when a multi-channel campaign included print, e-mail, and Web landing pages, it was 35% more effective than print alone.

What might this look like in a live campaign? You might send a postcard, inviting recipients to a personalized URL and then follow up with a thank-you e-mail. You might send an e-mail inviting people to your Web site, where they can select various product options and then follow up with a personalized brochure based on their preferences. You might mail out a seminar invitation, confirm registration by e-mail and then follow up with a text message 24 hours in advance of the event, reminding them to attend. The results of such efforts?

According to InfoTrends:

• More than 64% of marketers indicated improvements in overall revenue, profi tability and sales.
• More than 60% indicated improvements in response rate, customer acquisition, retention and satisfaction.
• More than 43% indicated reductions in cost per lead, improvements in quality of leads and improvements in conversion to sales.

That’s a pretty good endorsement. Are you planning to add multiple channels to your next marketing campaign?

Many Eye-Catching Finishes Can Make Your Marketing Simply Irresistible.

Marketing specialists are not short on tips for boosting direct mail response rates. A quick online search turns up such ideas as effective copywriting, targeted or one-to-one marketing, data mining, list management and so on. While these are valuable ideas, marketers tend to give short shrift to the physical aspects of the printed piece itself. One especially underutilized technique is the creative use of postpress or finishing options to add additional decorative enhancements to a printed piece. Think of finishing as the icing on the cake.

There are many finishing options available, depending on the desired decorative effect and the budget.

At the most basic level are varnishes or coatings, which printers apply either during or after printing for protection or to add gloss and sheen and make a printed piece “pop.” Printers apply a spot varnish or coating to certain portions of a printed piece, such as a particular image or bit of text, accenting those areas and providing contrast with other areas. Aqueous coatings are water-based and are thus more environmentally friendly than other varnishes and coatings, but they can be more expensive. UV coatings are cured by ultraviolet light and can add greater levels of sheen and protection than varnishes or
aqueous coatings. Varnishes and coatings are also available in a range of gloss levels.

More elaborate finishing techniques can make your printed piece even more eye-catching. Embossing uses dies to create raised (or “relief”) areas that make images or text literally pop, while debossing creates depressed portions of a printed piece. Foils and specialty inks can be added to embossed regions to add even more special effects. Speaking of which, foil stamping applies metallic foils like gold or silver to the substrate, also going a long way toward highlighting text and images.

Regardless of the finishing technique used, it should be appropriate to-and work in concert with-the content or message of the piece itself so that the style and
substance are not working at cross purposes.

Just as you would rarely make a cake without considering icing and other decorative touches, so too shouldn’t you think of creating a printed product without considering finishing processes. Your printer can help you decide on the best options for your specific job.