In the past week, I received two personalized mailings that made me remember why I love them so much. There is just something about a personalized mailing, something that is personally tailored to fit my needs and interests, that carries an air of sophistication in the world of direct mail. Hats off to Starbucks and Google AdWords for providing two examples of great direct mail pieces that inspired me to tear open the envelope and devour what is inside.
The first: Starbucks
Birthdays don’t get easier as we get older, but a complementary, delicious chai tea latte with soy milk (or beverage of your choice) can certainly soften the blow of getting one year closer to “over the hill.” This is where the Starbucks piece gets to the heart of personalized mailings: invoking a warm feeling toward your brand/company from a consumer. Getting a birthday postcard feels good. It gives you a gift when you most need someone to acknowledge your special day. The older we get, fewer and fewer people tend to make a fuss about our birthday. When you’re favorite company does, it feels good. Warm fuzzies are now associated with Starbucks.
The second: Google AdWords
This delicious piece of mail is a 3rd quarter report charting the key metrics on clicks, impressions and costs of a Google AdWords account for an up and coming Albany marketing firm. The information is extremely relevant to the business that received it. This piece embodies another key characteristic of successful direct mail: RELEVANCE. It’s not a generic informational piece, rather a highly personalized and targeted piece uniquely tailored to Rebel CMC’s business. It is more than a direct mail piece; it is a piece of company collateral. It will be held on to for a long time, rather than the generic informational packet that gets tossed in the trash after a quick glance.
What makes both these pieces so fabulous? As much as we hate to admit it, mail can be boring; it can be static and irrelevant to us, the almighty consumers. These personalized mail pieces represent the exact opposite: fresh, attractive…worthy of opening. I see MY PERSONAL NAME in an advertisement and BOOM, I am interested.
Another key component to a successful direct mail campaign is response rate. If people aren’t responding or engaging, your mail piece is not doing is job. Personalized mail pieces are a key component to generating higher response rates. The more relevant you can get in your direct mailing, the more likely you are to make an impression. The abilities in personalized print today are limitless. If you have the information in your database, you can use it to trigger personalized text fields as well as images. For instance, if your database lists each recipient’s gender, you could create two separate mail pieces geared to each sex. Digital print makes this all possible. We can trigger unique fields on the fly. Of a 5,000 piece run of postcards or personalized booklets, no two need to be the same. The technology is vast.
The benefits of personalized mail are not revolutionary ideas to The Mailworks- we have been working for years to perfectly tailor personalized mailings to meet our client’s needs. Finally, mega brands like Starbucksand Google are utilizing the tools to project their mail campaigns to the new level and we LOVE that they are getting on board. With the growing power of social media and the internet, direct mail has the unique ability to be a stronger communication method than ever before: it puts something concrete and tangible in the hands of the consumers. We, as consumers, are constantly bombarded with so many different marketing messages over the course of the day that sometimes it can be overwhelming. Messages can easily get lost. Direct mail gives an opportunity to connect one-on-one with your target audience.
Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, considered gurus in the marketing industry, revolutionized marketing when The One to One Future was first published. Since its initial publication, this book has become today’s bible for marketers; some even argue the book prepared the way for current Internet-based/personalized approaches to marketing. They put it simply: “When two marketers are competing forthe same customers business, all other things being equal, the marketer with the greatest scope of information about that particular customer — the marketer with the most extensive and intimate relationship with that customer– will be the more efficient competitor.” Personalized mail pieces, such as these, are what give you the leg-up on your competitors.
The Mailworks are seasoned veterans when it comes to personalized mailing. Call us today and we can assist you with all your mailing needs!
