Print and digital personalization start with data. Whether you are using direct mail, email, or mobile, your customers want your marketing communications to be tailored to their interests and needs.
So how do you do it? As with any relationship, it starts by asking questions.
These questions go beyond basic demographics. They get into what makes your customers tick. For example:
- Are you targeting the right audience?
- What defines this audience?
- What matters to them?
- What motivates them?
- What interests them?
- Where and when can you reach them?
- What does their purchase journey look like?
- What are the touchpoints that matter?
- Have they purchased before?
- How frequently do they purchase?
- What types of items do they tend to purchase?
What items do you sell in this group that they would be interested in?
These questions go beyond age, gender and location to include lifestyles, attitudes, and values. If they are currently your customer, then you can use purchase data to dive deeper into what they are looking for. Once you have this information, you can create highly targeted segments that are more effective than demographics alone. You can also layer on true personalization to create an even more powerful recipe for driving sales.
This information can be obtained through profiling, purchasing additional data, conducting print or email surveys, and a variety of other techniques.
