Personalized Marketing offers increased response rates and return on investments.  To successfully implement personalized marketing tactics you must first have a database.   But, a database alone is not enough.  Databases can only be useful if they’re sorted, analyzed and have turned random consumer data into usable consumer information.

While sorting your database can seem to be a Herculean task, the benefits of taking the time to sort your data are worth it.  The longer you put off organizing your data, the more unorganized your database will become and it will be more difficult to manage it at all — wasting years of valuable information.

Most studies show an average of a 33 percent increase in ROI when a business uses personalized campaigns when compared to generic campaigns.  Personalized marketing also decreases your overall marketing investment — while the averages vary regarding the amount saved with personalization, it’s been shown to cut costs by over 25 percent.  A study conducted by MailPrint.com, showed that over the past three years VDP usage has increased from only about 28 percent of companies using the technique to around 46 percent as of the end of this year.

The statistics of what personalized marketing can offer a company are great, but the statistics showing growth in the number of companies participating in VDP and database marketing shows that more and more business not only believe in its value, but are also seeing and reaping the benefits of VDP and personalized communication.

While using VDP may take additional time and resources, the overall return on your investment will offer a much higher return.  For example, in 2010 a Municipal Loan Service Company ran a personalized marketing campaign that saw a 2,700 percent ROI (mailingprint.com.)

Timothy Freeman
President
Print & Graphic Communications Association