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A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Harnessing the Power of Personalized Images and Text in Direct Mail
December 17, 2008
By Frank Defino, Jr.,
The biggest question when you create a personalized URL (PURLs) is always, how do you motivate customers to go there?
Direct mail and e-mail are the two solutions and both can be built on the same database and employ the same text and graphics as the PURL to give an integrated campaign an overall consistency along with the personalization.
But before implementing a direct mail or email campaign using PURLs, take a moment to consider the power of personalization by itself. For instance, when you get the daily mail, what do you look at first? The grocery store flyer or catalog that everyone on the block has received, or the letter that has your name on it? If the address is handwritten, all the better, because in effect it also incorporates something personal from the sender. It says: This is "me" speaking directly to "you."
Rules of Engagement
Given the power of personalization, marketers must use it wisely to avoid trivializing themselves and their message. Direct mail personalization is a non-invasive way to draw recipients’ attention, and if the graphics and text are clever enough, the piece will engage them and elicit the desired response, such as bringing consumers to the PURL site.
Graphics are especially strong vehicles for projecting a company's image, but graphics and text must work together to create the full impact. One strategy is to use "picture personalization"—integrating variable text directly into high quality images. The eye is not used to seeing this so it gets people’s attention.
For example, a salon might send out postcards with an image on the front of a person scattering autumn leaves on the ground and the leaves spell out the recipient's first name. What do autumn leaves have to do with the salon? The reverse side of the postcard features the headline: "Fall is just around the corner…And so are we!" The text might then invite the consumer to visit a PURL to see what new services the salon has to offer or to make an appointment via the Internet.
The image is a significant part of the message; but it's also tied to the text and, ultimately, the PURL site. A personalized letter and the accompanying landing page engages the customer at least partly by presenting the sender as an organization he or she wants to get to know better.
All About Basics
Despite all the magic of digital technology, the most effective marketing campaigns still must begin with careful planning, asking the same basic questions any good marketer knows to ask:
• What is the purpose of the campaign? Are you selling a specific product or service? Reinforcing a relationship with the customer? Inviting local residents to an Open House?
• Who is receiving the piece? Are they existing customers? New prospects? Age- or income-based demographic?
• What message are you communicating? Is your product or service lower-cost or better quality than others? Is the offer for only a limited time? Are you announcing that customers can now place orders via the Web site on a 24/7 basis?
Because personalized materials are likely to be more closely examined by customers, it's even more important that they be appropriate and relevant to the recipient and make sense with the theme of the campaign.
Making It Happen
Personalized graphics are not a new concept. They can be created in Photoshop or even with a pencil and paper. But this approach can’t be done for high volumes. The good news is that now solutions exist so you can deploy variable data software to render graphics and text on-the-fly for volumes of 10,000 to 1,000,000 or more printed pieces. This does require a more sophisticated infrastructure and the expertise to ensure that all parts of the campaign and production process come together seamlessly to produce error-free results.
The key to success, however, always comes back to the data. Sending a highly-personalized direct mail piece to the wrong house or misspelling the customer's name defeats the purpose. Mailing lists should be updated on a regular basis, purging any suspect addresses from the list to ensure that every piece produced hits its mark with as little waste as possible.
Additionally, the creative content should always be of professional quality to project your company's image. A clever and well-made highly-personalized direct mail piece is something that consumers may keep under a magnet on the refrigerator or tacked to their bulletin board for months. The recipient is reminded of your genuine care for their needs through your marketing efforts.
After all, what the customer sees in the direct mail piece, and at the PURL site, may be all they know about you. This is customer engagement in its truest sense, and because your company will be remembered, you will want it to be remembered for all the right reasons: a positive customer experience, a sense of delight and that all important satisfaction.
Editor's Note: For more on PURLs and marketing, read "Creating the Best Personalized Landing Page" and "Add to Your Marketing Toolbox."
Frank Defino Jr. is vice president and managing director of Tukaiz, a results-driven marketing communications service provider based in Franklin Park, IL. Tukaiz provides in-house consulting, creative, interactive services, data applications programming, high-quality print production, and mail and fulfillment capabilities for a variety of industries and vertical markets. He can be reached at fdjr@tukaiz.com.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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