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Personalised direct marketing

Posted by Jane Toohey on 17 February 2012 | 0 Comments

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With advances in digital printing, personalised direct marketing is affordable and highly effective.

Many consider direct marketing using ‘snail mail’ to be dead and that somehow email communication has taken the lead in direct marketing and generating new sales leads for company growth. But people’s mailboxes are increasingly over-crowded and marketers can no longer expect that just because they managed to get an email into the inbox of an intended recipient, that it will be read, let alone responded to. Marketers are turning to personalised direct marketing.

It’s true that letter boxes are crammed with ‘junk mail’ that often goes straight into the recycle bin, yet postal direct marketing is making a come back. Marketers are using highly personalised designs, with quality-targeted data and speaking direct to their target customers with personalised messages. It’s all about sending a personalised letter, brochure, postcard or flyer to an individual on a database usually with a targeted and relevant ‘offer’ – providing a reason for the prospect to take action i.e. visit a store, call, send an email or go to a website.

The quality of the database is key, obviously with the correct names, the right spellings and in the job roles that need to be targeted, so data integrity rules! It’s also the innovation in design software and advances in digital printing that have made printed personalised direct marketing a powerful competitor to other forms of marketing.

A well-crafted direct marketing piece that uses personalised data (or variable data) and has a compelling offer will attract attention and be ten times more likely to encourage action than ‘un’ personalised direct marketing. Take a look at the direct marketing piece from Volvo and as you read it feel how much more compelling the personalised message is.

personalised direct mail volvo

Personalised direct marketing is a highly targeted, cost effective means of marketing a business or brand and with the ability to do shorter digital print runs, there is little excuse not to personalise a direct marketing piece. The cost and size of the paper that can be digitally printed is also no longer an issue with the latest digital colour printers, so most things can be personalised.The direct mail peice we created for retirement village operators (featured top of page) was targeted directly to and personalised for, the owner of the business. It demonstrated knowledge of the industry and offered a free communications audit.

It's all about speaking directly to the user; consider the latest Coca-cola campaign, personalisation on a mass marketing scale. Although not a direct mail piece and more of a social/viral campaign, it is the advances in digital printng that has made this possible.

personalised direct mail

Marketers can also change the way people respond to personalised direct marketing. We can now link customers from the printed media to uniquely personalised websites or landing pages that reflect the imagery and message in the printed literature and speak directly to the target customer. The personalisation engages the customer and the medium encourages them to take action and make contact easily.

The fact is that e-mail has reduced general postal volumes (invoices, statements, loyalty statements, etc) but people still like to receive, read, touch and feel printed letters, postcards, catalogues, brochures and booklets. You can pick them up and put them down whenever you like. You can flick between pages and compare content side-by-side. The computer screen can restrict what you can see and often to view all the content you have to scroll up and down; this can be annoying, and doesn’t allow you to compare content easily. Mail order marketers and catalogue marketers report that the customers who order over the phone and the Internet usually have their catalogue with them on their laps. They rarely order from on-line catalogues. So printed direct mail is not going away.

The digital print revolution means marketers are able to personalise content in the same way that websites and e-mail use personalisation. And they can also be far more competitive in their timeliness of message delivery and the targeting of it. Personalised direct marketing works.

 


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