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.

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