Direct Mail Still Top with Personalisation

If you’re looking for a revenue-generating powerhouse for your business, you’re looking for direct mail. Direct mail campaigns are the Old Faithful of marketing—businesses count on them because they’re dependable and promise a consistent Return on Investment (ROI).
You can push direct mail’s ROI from consistent to record-breaking with a focus on personalization. Some online marketers mistakenly think their methods are more personal than direct mail. But thanks to Internet cookies, over-sent emails and Google Ad Words, consumers are turned off and tuning out. Direct mail bests digital marketing tactics in the area of personalisation because, to the consumer, it feels more human.

The simplest way to personalise direct mail is using variable printing to address your business’s leads by name. But you can go even further than that.

The key to effective personalised direct mail is to get as much useful information as you can from your customers and prospects. Use sales records, surveys and social media to collect good data about your mail leads.

Now it’s time to personalise your direct mail piece. To craft a message that’s relevant to the prospect without being creepy, you’ve got to use your data carefully. Let’s say, for example, that your jewelry store wants to market diamond engagement rings. You’re working form a list of young people who you assume—or hope, for your business’s sake—are single (and you should know that from your data).

It makes sense to write copy that speaks to a buying audience in the mail piece you will send to males. On the other hand, the mail piece sent to females should feature different photos and copy. Although who will buy and who will receive such a gift varies, catering the message of the direct mail according to gender is a subtle method of personalisation

The best marketers have to interpret the data and use it in a way that tactfully shows consumers that your business is just what they need. But you don’t have to be selling jewellery to personalise direct mail skillfully and in a non-intrusive way. Think about your audience and how their demographic information may affect their buying habits or business needs.

Work from your recipient data to go beyond names in personalizsing your business’s direct mail. When you personalise your direct mail piece with a name, you’re working to catch your prospects’ attention.

At Minuteman Press Bath with the latest in variable data software XMPie we can really bring your direct mail to life. Call Dave Dixon on 01225 442000 for a chat about how we might be able to help.