At one time, simply sending out a persuasive postcard or letter with your offer would get customers pouring in. But as digital data collection and customer tracking have become the norm, direct marketing has become a lot more personal. According to Salesforce, consumers expect — and even enjoy — personalized marketing messages.
What does this mean for your business? If you’re not using personalized direct mail and online marketing, you may miss out on a critical way to grow your customer base. Learn more about personalization, why it matters, and how you can use custom mailing services to create a unique marketing campaign that gets results.
What Is Personalization, and Why Does It Matter?
Personalization involves tailoring your marketing message so that each recipient feels it speaks to them specifically.
Why does personalization matter to your marketing campaign? After all, aren’t most businesses just using digital printing services to send postcards to local addresses and pull customers in?
While this method may work for some, the most successful direct marketers invest in personalized messaging.
These marketing professionals use data and analytics to tailor their offers, capturing information on customer demographics and preferences. They use this data to target specific audiences, creating relevant offers that will truly benefit them.
In this age of information, personalized marketing is vital because it:
- Makes recipients feel important
- Prioritizes relevance in messaging
- Helps customers better focus on your offer
When a potential customer sees their name or a familiar image on a piece of marketing material, they know that you took the time to consider their needs and craft an offer that meets them where they are. Your marketing message suddenly becomes more relevant to the consumer, which makes them much more likely to buy from you.
4 Tips to Help You Personalize Your Next Campaign
Now that you understand the importance of personalization, you need strategies for incorporating it into your next direct mail marketing campaign.
While personalization can be a powerful marketing tool, it must be implemented correctly to be effective. Are you unsure where to start with personalizing your direct mail campaign? Here are four essential tips to help you spend your marketing dollars wisely and get the maximum return on your investment in digital printing services.
1. Use Mailing List Data
Many business owners and marketing professionals believe that all good marketing campaigns start with a well-crafted message and stunning graphics.
These elements are important, but the most successful marketers know that effective campaigns start somewhere else.
You should begin by analyzing customer data to create a personalized direct marketing campaign. The information you’ve collected from people on your mailing list should tell you the following:
- Their location
- Whether they rent or own their home
- Their household income
- Their age and gender
- Items they’ve previously purchased
When you have a well-crafted customer persona, you know precisely which offers your potential customers will be interested in and how your product or service can solve their problems or bring them joy. This knowledge helps you speak to them more personally, making them feel more comfortable choosing your business.
If you haven’t spent time building a mailing list, you should look into mailing list rental from a reputable custom mailing services provider. Or, if you’ve got names and addresses but no other information, consider a “data append” service which can provide you with other valuable information about your customers.
2. Use Their Name
Using a customer’s name in a greeting or introduction is a simple yet compelling way to customize the print material you use for your personalized direct marketing campaign. There are a few reasons why it works so well.
First, it captures the potential customer’s attention, especially since most of their mail won’t address them by name. It makes your potential customer feel as though you are speaking directly to them rather than to thousands of faceless people on a marketing list.
Using a customer’s name also helps them remember their favorable experiences with your business or shows how well they’ll be treated once they become a customer.
In this way, placing customers’ names on your marketing materials can help you use digital printing services to create an instant connection with the potential to become a lasting customer relationship.
3. Use Personalized Imagery
Just like using your potential customer’s name, personalized imagery is yet another tactic you can employ to capture attention and make the offer feel specific.
Direct mail recipients are used to seeing generic product and marketing images. Rarely do they get to see photos of their own town or neighborhood, or items specifically relevant to them.
If you run a local business, reinforce your investment in your community by having your custom mailing services provider include images of local landmarks or favorite spots in your print material. Instead of showing the same products to everyone, you can choose to feature items that you know the customer has purchased previously. This approach will capture customers’ hearts and make them want to buy from you.
Even if your business isn’t local, including local imagery makes potential customers feel special, mainly because they’ll know you considered the things they care about as you created your marketing materials.
4. Combine Print and Digital Marketing
Most marketing professionals and business owners associate direct mail marketing solely with print materials. However, knowing that you are not limited to print is essential. Digital marketing tactics work very well when you integrate them into your print campaign.
For example, you can use an e-commerce customer relationship management platform to generate personalized offer codes unique to a particular customer or neighborhood. You can also create links or QR codes that take potential customers to a customized landing page at a personalized URL with their name and a special offer.
Combining print and digital marketing tactics in this way allows you to personalize the customer experience across different channels and instantly collect and segment additional customer data. You can use this data to design even more targeted marketing materials in future campaigns.
Personalized Marketing Starts with Quality Materials
As more consumers become comfortable with personalized messaging, making it a part of your marketing strategy is wise. Combining personalization with high-quality materials will make your messaging more relevant and appealing. It will also show potential customers that you are truly invested in their happiness and well-being — something that should be the aim of every good marketing campaign.
If you’re ready to impress your potential customers, contact Complete Mailing & Printing today to see how our mailing lists and digital printing services can help your campaign reach its maximum potential. When you partner with the finest in digital printing, it’s easy to create effective marketing campaigns that convert.
