Features, expert advice & great top tips
Getting up close and personal
Consumers and clients want more - more relevance and better targeting. In particular, they want us to understand their individual needs and appreciate their custom.
“Of course”, we say and we busy ourselves with expensive CRM solutions and cutting edge analysis that lets us understand what customers buy and how, when and why they buy it, at a single glance...
At the same time, the volume capabilities (processing complexity and run lengths) of digital print production have seen a substantial step-change meaning that creative, copy, offers and response mechanisms can all be personalised cost-effectively to give customers a truly individual brand experience, whilst providing mailers with the sought-after economies of scale.
In sum, both the latest CRM and digital print solutions are highly impressive in isolation, but together they’re downright thrilling!
Despite all these advancements, many marketers are still missing a trick, satisfied in the knowledge that their CRM solution is the best money can buy, whilst all the time pushing out a ‘one size fits all’ message to customers and prospects. In short, many companies have failed to leverage the true value of customer insight in real marketing terms at all.
At last though it seems the tide is starting to turn. The move against mass mailing combined with an industry-wide focus on relevance marketing has challenged many direct marketing managers to consider how to increase return on investment using targeted and engaging messaging.
Using today’s variable print and content management software and a fast growing school of knowledge in the digital print community, brands are at last taking a data-led approach to communications that start by identifying key differentials and build campaigns using a top down approach. This means if a product has distinct markets with different lifestages and lifestyles, the core mailing components such as imagery, headlines and tone of voice are adapted to suit.
And the personal approach has a particular resonance when it comes to retention marketing. Most brands operate in a highly competitive environment where it’s increasingly difficult to dissuade customers from buying elsewhere. But individualised campaigns provide the recognition and acknowledgement that all consumers crave, they cut through clutter at lightening speed, with clarity and immediately create more brand empathy and they help the consumer make decisions in an increasingly complex marketplace.
Think about it – what can be better, for example, than acknowledging a previous purchasing relationship in a highly personalised communication? Such an approach can only strengthen the selling proposition. Using customer data to enhance the value of their messaging and generate a greater return is a strategy that many organisations are starting to employ across their day to day, marketing and transactional communications.
When it comes to the implementation of such personalised direct marketing activity it’s important to take a stepped approach to complexity. Rather than just rushing ahead with a complicated all singing, all dancing personalised approach, testing is crucial amongst your audience. See what works best and over time look to evolve and improve the process. As with all marketing activity it’s important to test and refine throughout the process to ensure the best results and return on investment.
Of course there’s still real scope for advancement with personalisation. Internet channels have raised the bar using content such as fully personalised sound and film but in today’s direct marketing environment the concept of moving from mass media to 'my media' is at last coming of age.
The print media channel should not be seen in isolation, but as the keystone of a variety of targeted communications, made available to customers and prospects in a timely and relevant way. It will always be a tangible, physical medium that provides the best results, but as with all marketing efforts needs to be integrated with other activity for maximum effect.
