Benedict Advertising - Business Building Solutions

by Christine Byelick, Production Manager

We all like to see our name on things.  Did you ever have a cup with your name on it?  Or a pen?  How about a post card?  I know that I have saved things from the Stone Age just because someone added my name onto it.

Let’s first talk about personalization in the print world.  In this day and age of digital printing, you can easily personalize a printed piece for a reasonable price. And by personalized, I don’t just mean a name.  You can put a name in one or more locations on the piece, but in addition, you can also personalize the graphics, or the copy.   It could be a post card, greeting card, flyer, or poster, just to name a few types of pieces.  You could create a piece that says something like “Joe Schmoe come visit us at your local SUBWAY® restaurant located at 123 Any Street, in any Town, any State for your free sandwich, and include a picture of a particular sandwich that is Joe’s favorite.  If you were Joe Schmoe and received that in the mail, would you go to that particular SUBWAY® restaurant?  I would.  One of my vendors emailed me a link to a site that I thought was pretty cool.  They had 16 different scenes in which you can personalize the art work with a name. The name can be written in the clouds, sand, bubbles, typewriter keys, grass flowers, snow, or on a billboard, again, just to name a few. You can check it out by clicking here.

How about personalized web pages?  I am sure you will come across these more and more.   Here is a very brief description of how it works.  An individual is given his or her own unique web address that is typed into their browser.  They can get this personalized URL (purl) from a direct mail piece, for example or email.  From there, a web page is then created and customized to that individual utilizing variable information retrieved from a database.  The personalization can include variable text, graphics, audio and video.  Now, you do not have to get fancy with this.  The landing pages can be the same for everyone except for the name.  Have you ever seen one of these?  They are pretty cool, especially if it has all the “variable bells and whistles” (never heard this term before, but I kinda like it).

Well why do any of this? In addition to having the obvious marketing benefits, with personalization, you will grab someone’s attention immediately, thereby increasing response rates.  I have heard response rates from personalized direct mail can reach as high as 40%! And as far as web is concerned, your content can be updated as needed or desired and will keep them coming back for more.   Now that is truly incredible.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 11:53 am and is filed under What's the 411?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.