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Are you personalizing, or truly personalizing? by Accutips.com

One industry expert advises marketers to look beyond what is traditionally considered personalization in direct marketing campaigns and ask themselves if they're really using personalization to its greatest advantage.

In a recent article featured in DMNews, Gregory P. Demetriou, president of American Mail Communications, advised readers to think out of the box when using personalization in direct marketing campaigns.

He noted many merge only the address block and salutation line for personalization, missing out on the opportunity to really tap the power of the data we have available to us. While this type of personalization does indeed deliver a letter to Mary White as “Dear Mary,” Demetriou says “it is not far removed from the old ‘drop in,' where address and salutation were added after the body of the letter was offset printed.”

Instead, consider the goldmine that your database can really deliver, pulling out valuable nuggets that apply only to the recipient. Such data might include dates of sale, the items purchased, product preferences, color preferences, sizes and more. Even personal facts the representative has learned while doing business with the customer can be helpful, such as spouse's name, children's names and ages, personal hobbies, affiliations, and major personal events, like birthdays and anniversaries.

So, how do you take the information in your database and make it more useful for personalization? Consider the following excellent example Demetriou provided as possible body copy for a letter to Acme Products, letting them know the widget they recently purchased now has an attachment that improves performance (the data specific to the recipient is shown in bold):

Great news! The widget that Acme Products Company bought in April of 2003 has just become more powerful.

Our new 2004 attachment will increase your widget's efficiency by 20 percent, and it even comes in yellow to match the one you currently own.

As purchasing manager, you know how important increased production efficiency is to your bottom line.

Please call Lenny Gold to make your widget an even more effective Acme Product asset. If you place your order today, we will reserve your 2004 attachment in yellow.

Of course, Demetriou said, “your flexibility will be governed by your database and the data collection process. But to maximize the use of this awesome marketing tool, you must plan ahead, and today is the time to start.”