How to Personalize Your Direct Marketing

Postcard Marketing can be very effective way of generating new sales for your business. Typical response rates on a postcard mailing is 1-2%. So that means if you send out 1000 postcards you might only get 10-20 people respond.

One effective way of improving your response rates is to personalize your message to the prospect. Creating a connection with the prospect will compel them to respond to the offer.

1) Create personalized postcards.

If you use a Variable Data Printer they are able to print postcards that are personalized to each recipient. For example it could say "Clint, We have been a big hit with Customers..." and the picture can be a picture of a Louisville Slugger with "Clint Steiner" on the bat. On the back of the postcard you can even put a personalized URL ie mysite.com/clint.steiner. Recipients visit the personalized URL (aka PURL) to see what the offer is all about.

2) Personalized Text on Landing Pages

You need to personalize the text on the landing page of the visitor. "Clint..thanks for visiting this page..." or "Clint we know you are interested in our product since you responded to our postcard". This will allow you to change the Headline or Body Text for each Visitor. Let's say we are selling 2nd Homes in Texas then your headline you could have "CLINT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A 2nd HOME IN TEXAS?"

3) Personalize Audio Messages on Landing Pages

There are tools that will personalize audio messages for people that visit their personalized landing page and you don't have to record 1000's of audio messages. Do you think it would be effective if you visited a landing page and an audio message started playing "Hello Clint glad you are interested in purchasing a 2nd home in Texas. We provide an unique opportunity..."

4) Personalize Photos on Landing Pages

What if you displayed different photos depending on if the visitor was a male or female. Let's say you are selling 2nd homes on a Lake in Texas. If you created personalized landing pages for each recipient of your direct mail campaign you would be able to display different photos depending on the visitor. So if the visitor was a male you could display pictures of golfers, fishing and Texas Football. If the visitor was a female you could display pictures of a spa, laying on the beach, and photos of shopping nearby the lake. This is an very effective way of creating a connection to each visitor.

5) Prefill in Forms/Surveys

If you are selling a product on your personalized landing pages you could prefill in the name and address (you already have that information since you mailed them a marketing piece). All they would have to do is fill in the Credit Card information and hit SUBMIT. This is a technique to make it easier for the client to purchase your product.

The 5 tips above can dramatically improve your response rates. I have seen personalized marketing campaigns get 20-50% response rates.