From the moment you first powered up your phone, you have been feeding it data that has made the experience more specific to you. Your behaviors, your preferences, even your vocabulary – everything about how you interact with your phone changes and customizes your experience specifically for you. This same technique can be applied to your direct marketing. You can personalize and customize the your target audience’s experience and how they interact with your marketing through the use of Variable Data Printing.

In its simplest form, variable data printing just takes what you already know about your customer, client, or prospect and turns that information into a personalized mailpiece. Even if you only possess a basic mailing list, you have enough details to get started. You can keep it simple: A postcard with a field that addresses each recipient by their first name. Or you can make it dynamic: A mailer with a special offer for an item previously purchased and a list of the closest locations where they can redeem the offer. It can start simple, but the possibilities for personalization are endless.

We are inundated with marketing. From subtle product branding to electronic billboards – everywhere we look, there’s advertising. With so many types of marketing vying for your audience’s attention, custom content in a direct mail campaign can be a real game changer. By collecting and maintaining a comprehensive database about your audience, you can make your direct mail message much more efficient and effective. First name personalization is a great start but don’t stop there! Go further than just “Hi John!” If you are marketing athletic shoes in the southwest, for instance, you can use variable data to produce mailers that are specific to gender, type of athletic activity, and region. You can create and print unique pieces personalized to their interests or which addresses common pain points in their demographic. You could consider your mailpiece as a way to break the ice for a conversation that will actually be carried out online or combine physical mail with other channels in a cross-media campaign.

This isn’t just theory, either. This stuff works. There is real, hard evidence that personalization is critical for success in today’s marketing environment. The old days of blind mass marketing to an unknown recipient is dead. Consumers are so much more educated today and their expectations are far higher than ever before. They can tell when an offer is irrelevant to them or is generic and impersonal. In fact, that is exactly what the average person means when they use the term “junk mail.” That old style of marketing is the kind of piece that doesn’t even gain a few seconds of the customers’ time – it just gets thrown away or recycled. What a waste of money and time! And it’s completely unnecessary these days. It just takes a little effort to compile relevant data and, suddenly, you’re playing in a whole new league with your direct marketing.