Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Personalized Marketing: It’s Mainstream

From personalized coupons arriving in the mailbox to “just for you” recommendations in the inbox, personalized marketing is everywhere.
In fact, in a study of more than 1,000 enterprises, InfoTrends found that not only is personalization occurring more frequently, but when marketers do send out personalized marketing pieces, those pieces have a higher level of complexity. There are more variable pictures and images. More variable blocks of text. More dynamic compositions of the sections of the marketing pieces.

When asked, “What percentage of your customer communications/marketing campaigns fit into the following categories?” InfoTrends found that 62% of campaigns are either fully personalized or segmented:

Audience-Targeting Approaches
Personalized (one to one)
29%
Segmented (one to few)
33%
Mass marketing (one to many)
38%

Source: Understanding Vertical Markets: Enterprises Communication Requirements (InfoTrends)

Think about that for a moment. Nearly two-thirds of campaigns are targeted, if not fully personalized. What does that mean for you? It means that if you are sending static mail pieces, you’re competing with marketers who are speaking (potentially to the same customers and prospects) on a personalized level.

If your competitors are personalizing and you are not, who do you think is going to get the most mind share? Even if your competitors aren’t personalizing today, they might be tomorrow. You want to get there and establish a relationship with those customers or prospects before they do.

Need help planning your next personalized campaign? Give us a call!

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Putting 1:1 Printing to Work

Take the example of Disney Destinations LLC, a division of The Walt Disney Company. Like many marketers, when someone contacted Disney Destinations about its services (in this case, business-to-business customers looking to book a business meeting at one of its resorts), it used to overwhelm them with pamphlets with every option, whether relevant to the caller or not. The cost of printing and storing all of those materials was very high, and if any of the information changed, it had to be thrown away and reprinted.
Disney moved to a print-on-demand model for these customers, but this is more than a POD story.
Previously, Disney had utilized 1:1 printing to communicate with individual and family vacationers who booked resort packages. The project was so successful that it decided to use a similar model with B2B inquiries. Now, instead of sending out large, undifferentiated information kits, Disney creates 24-page, full-color, fully personalized information booklets specific to each inquirer's needs. Booklets are 100% variable, with 3,000 potential combinations of text and images, personalized with the prospect's company and meeting information.
The results? Phenomenal. Disney has cut printing and storage costs by 50%. Plus, it more than doubled its response and conversion rates.
Does all this happen automatically just because a marketer switches to 1:1 printing? No. Previously, Disney Destinations admits that it was not following up with inquiries effectively. So at the same time it switched to 1:1 printing, it created a dedicated sales follow-up team. The detailed information gathered for the 1:1 brochures allows the team to follow up more easily with current prospects, as well as with past customers who have become inactive. The resort is also blending in other customer contact vehicles, such as e-mail contacts and personalized URLs, both as follow-ups to inquiries and to generate new inquiries. Together, all of these efforts create a comprehensive approach to prospect communications and existing customer communications that is immensely profitable.

The moral of the story? For world-class marketers, 1:1 printing has become more than a type of marketing campaign. It has become a way to do business. What can you learn from them?