Thursday, July 05, 2007

In an attempt to personalize, make sure you don't offend...

I am a huge proponent of personalizing direct mail so that the recipient feels like the package and/or offer was developed specifically for them. I think the invention of PURL (personalized URLs) technology and digital printing have created great opportunities for personalized messaging. One word of caution however -- If you don't trust all the information in your database, be careful! When pulling information for personlized direct mail campaigns, make sure that the information fields you are pulling from are correct and complete, otherwise you might end up addressing the solicitation to the wrong name or no name at all. In which case, not only did you fail to personalize the package, you have also most likely offended the recipient.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't ya think that folks are hip to the techniques of mass (personalization) marketing? We all get them from for-profit businesses and politicians all the time, and no one does it better than these folks, but we've come to spot them and often before we even open them.

Hasn't all the computer advancements only raised the bar of personalization to the point that the only way to really personalize a piece of mail is to actually personalize the piece of mail?

I can only see 2 honest answers: either take the time to really personalize it or don't and cop to it in the body text. Is there a better way that doesn't involve both sides just accepting the personalization lie?