This post is late by my standards and should have been published back on the 29th December. No I haven’t been caught dog napping.

But without boring you with the details, I’ve decided to post now, better late than never.

As has been customary for the last two years my final post of the year has always been an overview or resource tool for you or the ‘best of’ what I’ve written during the year.

By the best of I mean the posts I’ve enjoyed writing and more importantly generated feedback and good responses. But above all else I hope it provides a useful ‘go to’ for future reference.

So how did 2014 start?

It seems so long ago now doesn’t it but January came in with a flourish and I talked about the importance of document security and how to manage information especially when you are on the move.

With the use of tablets and smartphones it is so much easier to read, respond and write on the move.

But how careful do you need to be?

February and March as is customary in our business focussed on P60’s every payroll department’s worse nightmare and a cumbersome task that still needs to be managed. But outsourcing the process can save time and money. Here’s how.

And then there was no stopping me I was off onto the importance of content personalisation and customisation in just about every working document from payslips to marketing content.

Why? Simple. Because content personalisation has everything to do with print and the physical world as it has in the digital and social world.

Content personalisation is key for any direct mail or content marketing piece.

Take a look at your payslip, an invoice, social media messages.

The whole point is to make your message personalised whether it’s a message for an employee or for a customer, make it personalised and relevant and get the the message across in the right way.

March covered hybrid mail – a great way to mail out a few to several thousand letters at less than the cost of a 2nd class stamp and a service which more and more people are climbing on board because there’s no set up costs and no on-going charges. Best of all you can do it all from your desktop.

It was also the time when ‘big data’ was being talked about.

It seems like an enigma but it reality it’s simply a case of having loads of complex data sets but not understanding what to do with it.

That will be the challenge certainly for the bigger organisations in 2015.

April was the month where I really drove home the view of why print needs to be part of your content media and marketing strategy and leveraging the power of print.

Why should print be part of the cross media marketing mix when it comes to marketers planning a re-brand or delivering an important message?

May continued the theme of cross media marketing and suggested ways that a print management company can help you with planning your cross media marketing strategy.

Part of that is understanding what your customer really wants.

At the start of June I was surprised at just how many of us didn’t know what BYOD meant and how many of us are now working on our own devices at work.

This has a number of ramifications for businesses not least security but how do you legislate how employees use their own devices in the workplace.

I had a lot of fun with this blog post and it really did happen to me. How easy it is for personalisation to go horribly wrong.

What does your content marketing say about you?

How do we engage with customers when there are so many social media platforms and moreover where do we find our audience?

Having achieved that how do you then get your message read or heard?

I’m regularly asked, Caroline, how can we save money on our print, not just the customary business print but the processing of print like printing and mailing invoices, statements, customer letters, so I wrote a post about it.

The ice bucket challenge was a worldwide phenomenon in August, just about everyone rose to the challenge and had a bucket of ice cold water thrown over them, I was one of them.

Why did it go viral and what did the ice bucket challenge have in common with content marketing? 

It’s social and online which is why it went viral and the challenge for marketers is understanding how multi-channel marketing matters in a digital world and how to be successful at delivering it time and time again.

One of my favourite posts was written in November where I talked about going digital completely and giving up the use or need for paper.

People talk about the demise of print and paper but I believe whilst it’s need has changed it still forms an important part of any marketing campaign if used intelligently with QR codes and augmented reality.

My last blog post in December argued the case for businesses needing social media.

Since writing that article I’ve read at least three that have argued the demise of social media, or rather we’ve become fatigued by it.

That it has probably gone as far as it can go and millenials want more instantaneous ways of receiving their content with instant gratification.

What now for 2015?

I’m starting on the NCTJ (national council of training journalists) to develop my career and skills in writing because I enjoy researching and writing on subjects that I’m interested in.

I will continue to do my very best to serve up interesting articles throughout this year and any noteworthy industry news.

Until next time.

Have a very happy new year and thank you for turning up and reading.

The post From content personalisation to cross media marketing. appeared first on Digital Print Management.

You cant have failed to notice Coca Cola’s ‘Share a coke’ summer campaign which is a great modern example of marketing personalisation.

Coke replaced the iconic brand with 250 most popular british names.

To ensure that marketing personalisation is targeted it has to be customised and personalised whether personalisation is attributed to direct mail, billing, social media personalisation is the key to engaging with your audience and customers.

We are over loaded with marketing messages subliminally and consciously but how do you cut through the ever increasing noise and get your message heard?

You personalise your product or service to suit the audience that the message is intended for.

Coke’s campaign was designed to create a huge buzz and engage its audience throughout the world and it has succeeded in doing that as people take to social media platforms with images of their personalised bottle.

What is the difference between marketing personalisation and customisation?

There are two types of one to one marketing: personalisation and customisation

Personalisation occurs when the company decides what marketing mix is required for an individual this is based on previously collected data.

A perfect example of this is Amazon.com personalised recommendations that display as pop ups when you log in showing suggestions of purchases you might like to make based on your previous purchase history.

Customisation is where the customer specifies one or more elements of his or her marketing mix. An example of this is Dell Computers giving the customer the option to customise the computer they order.

Sending out unpersonalised messages doesn’t engage your audience by personalising the campaign whether it is direct mail, email marketing, social media, billing you are more likely to engage a response from your customers.

96% of organisations believe that personalised marketing improves response rates and personalised emails improve click through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10% [Hubspot].

Irrespective of the statistics customer letters, invoices both paper and electronic, direct mail, email newsletters are being posted out unpersonalised this is a missed opportunity for further engagement with the customer.

Why is data so important? 

Making your brand personalised to your audience increases customer engagement.

According to the DMA [Direct Marketing Association] consumer willingness to share data with brands has increased dramatically over the past 18 months. Over 50% of the 1,193 UK adults that took part in in a survey for the DMA/fast.map data tracking report were willing to provide basic information about themselves – name, address and email to receive marketing messages.

Equifax one of the UK’s leading data providers believes that the rise in consumer confidence in sharing data is the increased transparency in privacy policies and improving practices to secure trust.

Major brands such as Unilever are ensuring their privacy policies are communicated better so that customers understand how their data is being used and 43% state that a clear easily understood data privacy policy would encourage them to share their data compared to one in three 18 months ago. Research has also proven that the better the data privacy protection policy is worded the permission to market rate can be improved by as much as 100% with the best notices reducing opt out rates by as much as 10%.

How does personalisation add value to my marketing?

What is the point of marketing personalisation?

Engagement with customers is all about data and never has it been more important than to understand consumers habits and what drives their behaviour to buy.

Purchasing data, social media, customer service interactions and web searches are all the essential components needed to drive customers to purchase.

Ensuring that your database is kept up to date gives a valuable insight in to customers behaviour influencing how you target your specific audience and/or market.

UK Office Direct is good example of managing their customer database when orders are placed on the site it offers similar products which may be cheaper or, more expensive but the point is you are given a choice of products and associated accessories.

This form of collaborative filtering determines appropriate recommendations for
the consumer ensuring that you are made aware of all available products and accessories.

UK Office invoices which are sent electronically contain variable personalised data hi-lighting various up and coming offers, products and accessories that the consumer might be interested in the foreseeable future.

It is clever personalised and strategic marketing because each invoice they email out is highly targeted and specific to the recipient.

The more a business knows about its customer the more it can tailor the buying experience by delivering targeted and relevant content.

Like amazon, a regular visitor to a specific website starts to receive a more personalised experience because the company recommends products and services that may be of interest based on the data the customer has previously entered making  the chance of click through rates significantly higher.

A more customised experience determined by consumer habits will drive conversion rates and encourage visitors to spend more. By being able to have instant access to the products they like with little effort they will respond by spending more money or by returning to the website.

The more personalised their experience is the more they are likely to share it.

Content is king

The more relevant the page the visitor lands on the more likely it will convert in to a sale. By understanding who is visiting the website, mobile site or app will ensure companies can be target specific and retarget customers with offers that make the whole buying experience relevant.

What next?

The new wave of inbound marketing is focussed on ‘personalisation’ and it is not just B2C but will focus on B2B.

By creating a more personalised experience for prospects and customers that delivers solutions to their individual problems, interests, needs and wants will positively reinforce people coming back.

How does marketing personalisation fit in with print?

Variable data printing lead the way with personalisation and the concept of personalisation is not new.

Printing variable data invoices, statements, council tax books and bills were some of the original paper based applications that were highly personalised and customised to the individual.

This form of personalisation has tripped over into the cross media marketing mix. [Cross media marketing] where marketing campaigns can include a PURL, in lay mans terms the PURL is a link that takes you to a website via a QR code or barcode that you scan with your smart phone.

Good content = increased web traffic = more sales

Content and personalisation has always and will always be king. Good content coupled with a unique and personal buying experience will drive customers to visit your website which is ultimately what we want.

What do you think?

How do you use personalisation in your marketing strategy?

What has worked for you and what didn’t?

Share with us your experience.

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