In the past we have discussed the importance of including relevant, valuable information on your direct mail piece for your consumers; because at the core of personalized marketing its main benefit is simple: The more personalized a brand’s message is, the more likely it is to convert prospective customers into spending consumers. According to a direct mail study from “Who’s Mailing What?” over the past two years, personalization has been on a steady rise. Additionally, according to Print is Big, email open rates have been on a steady decline.
While personalized messages can be seen throughout multiple communication tools — from email inboxes to mail boxes to social media — we’re going to focus on personalized direct mail. The more targeted your direct mail piece is, the more likely it is that your customer will follow up and respond to a call to action — be it viewing a website, making an online purchase or visiting your store — relevant messages are more likely to get the consumer to respond.
In addition to including personalized, relevant print and direct mail messages, you can also include personalized mobile landing pages through the use of pURLs and even personalized QR Codes. By doing so, you’re not only increasing the amount of time your consumer spends with your message, but you’re also able to collect the specific information they clicked on — in real time — and follow up with them accordingly in order to close the sale.
Finally, according to the “Who’s Mailing What?” statistics, in 2009 only 28 percent of mailers had personalized content. The most recent stats show that 46 percent of direct mail pieces contained personalized consumer messages. With database management systems that can be sorted and grouped according to consumer’s interests and Variable Data Printing (VDP) that enables multiple messages to be printed in one print-run, personalization is readily available and, based on the facts, should be used to communicate with your target audience to see higher response rates.
Timothy Freeman
President
Print & Graphic Communications Association
