As a Direct Mail Marketer, you already understand the importance of personalization. A targeted and relevant mailer can have an enormous impact on response rates. But gone are the days when customers and prospects were impressed by simple name personalization in Direct Marketing communications.

Technology, and its ability to accumulate and track relevant data, has changed their everyday experiences with and expectations of brands. They fully expect you to know who they are and how they have interacted with your brand at every touch point. They not only want personalized mail, they also want customized experiences. 

Sound overblown? Look at what consumers have reported in surveys:

78% of consumers will only engage with offers if they have been personalized to their previous engagements with the brand. — Marketo

87% of polled consumers say that brands need to put more effort into developing a seamless experience. And not just for digital channels, but for offline options. — Zendesk

51% of consumers expect that by 2020 companies will anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions before they make contact — Salesforce

Here is an example of a Direct Mail piece that meets consumers’ personalization demands:

What's Standing in Your Way?

Marketers have been challenged to integrate all available data sources to promote a personalized Direct Mail experience. When their data is coming from many different resources and it's not accessible on a centralized platform, it’s almost impossible to increase personalization and utilize it at scale.

The traditional Direct Mail deployment process also limits the scale and scope of truly personalized experiences. Strategizing, estimating, producing, delivering and measuring success of a Direct Mail campaign takes roughly 3 months. It’s difficult to test and improve personalization tactics under these circumstances.

There is pressure on marketers to find a way to scale personalization because it delivers the results their organizations and consumers demand. Salesforce reports that in 2019, while 86% of marketers credit personalization with a major or moderate boost in lead generation, only 28% are satisfied with their ability to create personalized omnichannel experiences.

With new marketing platforms, Direct Mail marketers can finally apply the full depth of their customer and prospect data to develop uniquely versioned campaigns on-demand. Not only do such platforms integrate various data sources, but they recognize trends and themes in real-time, identify winning variables, and leverage automation to get mail deployed in days or weeks versus months.

Being Personal at Scale

By leveraging the power of machine learning to intelligently understand what has worked in the past and predict what will work in the future, marketers are able to safely produce narrower, more targeted campaigns for each customer in their database.

At scale, Direct Marketers can architect an entirely new process of engaging customers, either at a macro level with generic promotions or down to the micro level where offers, images, copy, paper type, and delivery time are all managed in a single platform.

While personalization is a popular buzzword, we can’t forget that it is also a powerful capability thanks to emerging technologies that are radically redefining what it means in the context of scalable Direct Mail.

How powerful? According to The E-Tailing Group, the ability to personalize at scale has helped propel a 500% increase in consumer spending. That’s 500%. Meanwhile, the venerable McKinsey & Company reports 50% reduced acquisition costs and 5-15% lift in revenues from increasing personalization, plus a 10-30% increase in the efficiency of marketing spend.

There is no shortage of evidence; your innovative Direct Marketing peers already know the future of Direct Mail is here. They keep increasing their data-driven marketing spend and their commitment to use data for improving personalization and predictive modeling for greater engagement. They have learned that digitally transforming their Direct Marketing operations gives them the power to deliver truly personalized Direct Mail. They might be industry colleagues. They might be your competitors. But they are charging ahead full-steam, as should all Direct Marketers who recognize that customers demand a truly personalized experience — or they will find that experience elsewhere.

Looking for more insight on how your organization can improve Direct Mail personalization strategies? Submit a Request for Consultation and a KleerMail Solutions Specialist will contact you.