Why Personalized Direct Mail Makes "Cents"
Direct mail sometimes gets treated like a marketing strategy straight out of the Stone Age, but it continues to be successfully used - even in a digital world. Among many marketing professionals, it remains a worthwhile component of any multi-faceted marketing strategy. But what many marketers don't realize is that the performance rate of direct mail can be improved by one-third or more just by adding a little personalization.
Too many mailings end up in mailboxes with little or no customized target. This generic approach to direct mail costs far more than you may realize. When generic mailings are 25 percent less effective than their personalized counterpart, why not take the extra steps to create a personal touch?
Still, when you consider your budget, you may believe that personalization is too expensive to make the efforts worth the rewards. But it's worth another look. Here's why generic direct mailings should be a thing of the past.
It's all about the data
Some marketers may think of "personalization" as letters using handwritten fonts and a great deal of time-consuming work. That's simply not the case. In reality, personalizing direct mail is more about creating the illusion of a personal touch. And those personalized elements can be drawn from your database.
Most marketing departments use these databases all the time. While it's true that maintaining up-to-date databases and customer lists can be painstaking work, it's critical to ensuring efficiency in your marketing efforts. If these lists are well-maintained, there's little extra work involved in personalizing your mailings.
Ultimately, your goal should be to develop an emotional connection between the customer and your organization. It doesn't take sweeping personal touches to achieve this -- in fact, in many cases it might be the subtle touches that make a big difference.
This valuable consumer data can be collected through a variety of venues: online lead generation, past interactions, donations, etc. These various interactions should be used to update and fill out your consumer data, which can then be used to make sure the next mailings are relevant to each recipient.
One size does not fit all
Successful direct mail campaigns should be developed similar to how email lists are developed and maintained. To put it simply, not every customer is in the same place -- not only in their relationship with your organization, but in life as well. To reach these customers effectively, different approaches are needed.
Think about it: You don't want to send out a direct mailing pushing season ticket sales onto a customer who has already made that purchase. It's a waste of your money and reflects poorly on your organization.
Of course, developing multiple campaigns will add to your direct mail costs, and increasing your investment may be unnerving -- especially if you're dubious of direct mail's benefits in the first place. But that investment is essential to getting a good return on your efforts.
Do your homework
Personalized direct mailings take a little elbow grease to implement, but you shouldn't judge their value based on initial performance. No matter how well or poorly your campaign performs, collect all of the available data and analyze it to identify areas of improvement. Then decide what you should test on the next go-round.
You might find that, in some cases, simply addressing a mailing to a specific individual – rather than a “Current Resident” – has produced a significant increase in responses. At the same time, you might find your efforts to personalize in another area may not be producing the return you had anticipated.
If you do your homework, you can use these results to mold future campaigns that both minimize your direct mail costs while increasing your responses – and, subsequently, your organization’s revenues.