In a previous post, we discussed the ways you can use variable data printing (VDP) to personalize your marketing collateral for greater returns. Today, we’re going to dive a little bit deeper into this technique, discussing the ways you can use this printing method to personalize your materials for clients or prospects in completely different industries.
As a business, you likely have a variety of different pieces of printed material. Between brochures, handouts and direct mail flyers, you have a wide variety of collateral – with each piece serving a different purpose. Some may be more evergreen pieces of content that you can share with virtually any client, while others are client or industry specific.
When marketing to specific industries, personalizing your collateral for these different targets is an incredibly important step to take. With VDP, it’s also relatively simple.
In the past, you’d have to spend extra money and time printing different versions of these targeted handouts. Just the cost of extra print runs and all the labor surrounding this might severely limit your marketing capabilities.
The benefits of personalization are something you don’t want to miss out on. As statistics have shown over and over, personalized marketing materials lead to more and better conversions. Here’s how you can personalize your industry-specific materials for greater success.
Swapping out Text
One common example and technique for personalization involves swapping out one set portion of text.
Let’s say you’re developing a brochure advertising one of your services. This service has applications that are unique to different clients depending on which industry they work in, while also having some general features that apply to everyone. Rather than sending out one general piece to all your contacts with all of the potential unique applications muddled together, VDP allows you to personalize a key portion of copy to make it focused on the needs of your audience.
In this scenario, you’d use the introductory paragraph to personalize the service for each industry. Write multiple versions focusing on each industry you’re targeting and really set the tone right from the beginning that this service will do xyz for your target. From there, you can include enough general qualities to fill out the rest of the brochure to make it applicable for all of your recipients, regardless of their industry.
Multiple Image Options
There are other, more subtle ways to personalize your pieces for each industry. Your service may be essentially the same for clients across all verticals. In this case, rather than rely on personalized copy, you can update your imagery to convey the message that your offering is a natural fit for the industry you’re targeting.
The main image on the cover of your brochure, for example, might change for each industry. One batch can include an image showing manufacturing, another insurance and so on. If your cover doesn’t include images, then swap out whatever interior images you do include to be more industry appropriate.
A Best Practice
Keep in mind that, unlike our prior VDP recommendations, the goal here is not to test out and see which language or images resonate the most with your audience. This is a best practice suggestion that you should already be doing. However, once you have some experience personalizing your print marketing materials, then you can experiment and test out various images and text in an effort to increase engagement.
This is especially useful if your service is targeted to only two different industries. In this scenario, you can test out two variations of your print piece for each industry. This will allow you to record the feedback you receive for each and fine tune your imagery and language for future uses.
Start slowly, personalize, and then move onto the testing stages. Get your footing before you fully explore the extra leverage VDP provides. From there, it’s just a matter of how creative you can be.
