Get Ready: The Hyperpersonalized Era of Direct-Mail Marketing Is Here

Get Ready: The Hyperpersonalized Era of Direct-Mail Marketing Is Here

Everyone knows that the personal approach is best, whether you’re talking about interpersonal relationships or direct-mail appeals. But how good is “best” – and how personal is personal enough?

We’ll get into detailed numbers in a bit, but let’s start here: According to the Data and Marketing Association, personalized direct mail generates response rates six times higher than generic mailings.

Six times higher is nice – but it’s just a start. Let’s see how far we can go down the personalization path, and what we might be expected to reap as a result.

Beyond Basic Personalization

Gone are the days when doing a mail merge was personal enough. Today’s direct mail leverages sophisticated data analysis to create truly individualized experiences.

How individualized? How about different images based on different demographic profiles, or different delivery times based on recipient behavior patterns?

This isn’t just dropping in a name three times in a letter. This is modifying the entire look and feel of a piece to reflect interests and behaviors.

If you’re a non-profit, this has a couple different ramifications.

First, it requires intentionality. You have to craft an appeal that from the outset can accommodate variable fields (and not just text fields) for a donor’s giving history, preferred causes and past interactions.

This can be simple or less simple. A donor whose giving patterns are centered around events may get a different appeal than one who gives like clockwork on Jan. 1.

Perhaps a humane society can craft appeals based around dog lovers versus cat fanciers, or a university may be able to personalize its viewbooks to reflect prospective students’ academic interests, extracurricular activities or geographic location.

It’s all possible.

It’s all possible, but … it costs money. For instance, if you want to switch out images based on demographics, you need to have the images and you need to have someone with the technology to print the variable images.

There may be setup costs associated with such a switch, meaning you have to ask yourself: Is this actually going to move the needle?

In addition, you may want to create QR codes or set up PURLs – personalized URLs. The cost of a QR code is minimal; the cost of thousands of PURLs may not be.

Again, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

And ultimately, it’ll only be as good as the data you are able to compile (more on that in our next blog). Regardless of whether you make flanges or raise money for homeless animals, if you’re going to truly leverage personalization you need lots of data that’s well-organized, accurate, updated, segmented, and authorized for marketing use.

If you don’t have that, put your big personalization plans on hold until you do.

Getting this done requires a final element. Sometimes it might mean hiring a database manager, but often it requires outside help, namely a direct-mail provider who’s able to work with next-level personalization.

Spoiler alert: JHL Digital Direct can. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

How Personalized is Too Personalized?

Have you ever discussed something in conversation with a friend – how much you like giraffes, for instance – and then seen an ad for stuffed giraffes pop up in your social feed shortly after?

Maybe you like that, but a lot of people find it creepy.

There is an underlying creep factor that can go with a hyperpersonalized mailing that seems to know all about your love for dogs or your desire to major in interior design.

However, for most folks and in most settings the personalization in a direct-mail campaign will never approach the talk-about-giraffes/see-giraffes level mentioned earlier, so you’re safe.

For now.

How AI Can Help

As we’ve mentioned in previous blogs (and will discuss in future blogs), artificial intelligence has revolutionized personalization. Machine-learning algorithms can analyze massive datasets to identify patterns and predict messages that will resonate with specific recipients.

At their best, with the right platforms and solid prompts, AI tools can:

  • Generate dynamic content variations based on demographic and psychographic data
  • Optimize send times for individual recipients
  • Create predictive models for donor/prospect behavior
  • Automate personalized follow-up sequences
  • Test and refine messaging in real time

In addition, as we’ve covered previously, AI can create an entire campaign for you, though it should only be viewed as a starting point. The generic nature of AI-generated copy doesn’t align with the super-specialized nature of hyperpersonalization.

Remember: You know your donors and customers better than AI will ever know them. Play to your strengths.

Finally, don’t forget that with AI it’s garbage in/garbage out. It all ties back to your data.

Integration is Key

Something else we’ve talked about frequently: Direct mail doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The most successful campaigns integrate personalized direct mail with digital touchpoints like:

  • Personalized landing pages that match direct-mail creative
  • Triggered email followups based on mail delivery dates
  • Mobile app notifications that complement direct-mail offers
  • Social-media retargeting aligned with mail campaigns

Smart marketers use unified customer data platforms for physical mail and digital campaigns because they provide consistent personalization across channels and offline/online environments.

That’s great, but you know what’s ever better? It’s efficient. In an ideal world you create copy once and repurpose it for the web, for digital marketing and print marketing. One set of copy ensures consistent messaging – and it saves time and money.

Multichannel marketing is smart … but then there’s smart multichannel marketing. Creating copy once is the key.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

This stuff works – and the numbers back it up:

  • A mailing featuring an item the recipient recently viewed online has almost a 60% better chance of being opened.
  • Response rates increase by 135% when using variable data printing.
  • 84% of consumers say they’re more likely to open mail that’s personally relevant.

ROI improvements of up to one and one-third times over? Yes, please.

Making It Happen

To wrap it up, if you’re going to be successful with hyperpersonalized direct mail, you’re going to need:

  • Clean, comprehensive customer data
  • Sophisticated variable-printing capabilities
  • Strong data-security protocols
  • Regular testing and optimization
  • Integration with other marketing channels

If you’ve got that, you’re in the club. Congratulations.

The future of direct mail is hyperpersonal, data-driven, and seamlessly integrated with digital marketing efforts. JHL Digital Direct has the know-how to optimize the direct-mail portion of your marketing, and the technology to deliver hyperpersonalized solutions.

Questions on what that might look like with your organization? Let’s talk.

 

By Dan Topel 1/23/25

Copyright by JHL Digital Direct. All rights reserved.

Copyright by JHL Digital Direct. All rights reserved.