When you send out direct marketing materials, be they postcards, letters or emails, how personal are they? You’ve certainly abandoned the “Hello Valued Customer” greeting for a first name… but is that where it stops? Are you using past purchase history, geographic information, age and income levels and such to create truly personal messages and offers?

The database technology the drives today’s direct marketing — and the digital printing and data-driven email marketing that make the data come to life — allows for a level of personalization that we could only dream of a decade ago. And these technologies open up new doors for the smart marketer — and give us all a new responsibility — to make good use of that data.

This means not offering a minivan to the 24-year-old single male, or the two-seater sports car to the mother of three. It means targeting the customers who bought big SUVs from you 3 years ago with messages about the new hybrids or other vehicles that will get them out of that gas guzzler. It means being smart — and that will lead to profits.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC