Moving Beyond Personalization

Personalization has become increasingly fundamental in today’s marketing landscape. One of the secrets to the success of 1:1 marketing is to not rely on personalization alone to achieve your goal.

What does this mean for you? Well, personalization can get you in the door because it grabs attention. The recipient sees the piece as interesting or relevant to them, but there are many things that can occur between the time the mailer catches someone’s eye and the time that person responds.

If you look through a series of case studies on 1:1 print marketing, whether using personalized URLs (PURLs) or other forms of personalization, marketers with the highest response rates tend not to rely on variable fields alone to motivate recipients to action. There is always some other element present that synergizes with the variable information to make it happen.

Common Response Boosters

Let’s look at some of the most common, industry-wide techniques that marketers combine with personalization to maximize response rates.

Targeted audience. High response rates are most often the result of having a highly targeted audience that, by virtue of demographics or psychographics, is more likely than average to respond. A home furnishings company, for example, might target first-time homeowners. A lawn care company might send specials on lawn care kits to existing customers who recently purchased a high volume of grass seed.

Use of unusual design elements. Personalization can have a powerful impact, but only if people see it. To attract recipients’ attention in the first place, marketers often start with unusual design elements, such as oversized postcards, clear envelopes or pull tab envelopes.

Utilization of multiple media. Effective campaigns use multiple media to reinforce the message and remind people to respond. The use of personalized follow-up e-mails is a common technique.

High value incentive. This technique is common in applications using PURL campaigns, especially campaigns for lead generation or information gathering, such as customer feedback or prospect surveys. To motivate recipients to respond, marketers might offer a gift or monetary incentive, such as a restaurant gift card or entry into a sweepstakes.

Pick Your Team

Personalization is a powerful tool, but it’s not a magic wand. Just as we don’t expect athletes to carry their team to glory all by themselves, you shouldn’t expect personalization to carry the load alone, either. Like all marketing elements, personalization works best when it is part of a collective effort.