With everything seemingly online these days, print marketing is sometimes overlooked. While methods such as email marketing are important, other strategies, such as direct mail, are still very much successful. While you may think email marketing is more personal because you can customize your emails to address someone by name, did you know you can also do that with direct mail? Well you can, and you definitely should. Variable data printing, also known as VDP, offers numerous benefits and will help your small business form a well-rounded marketing strategy. VDP helps you reach your audience in a more personalized way, which in turn will encourage a response and help foster relationships. Here’s how variable data printing can benefit your small business.
What is variable data printing?
You may not be familiar with variable data printing, but that’s ok, we’ve got you covered. Variable data printing, commonly referred to as VDP for short, is an automated process that enables you to print specialized prints of the same product. Elements such as text or images can be changed from one piece to another. VDP uses spreadsheets or software such as customer databases to pull information relevant to your individual audience members, resulting in personalized pieces for each member of a campaign. What makes VDP even better is that it is cost-effective and super easy to implement.
Forms of variable data printing
When you think of personalization, you likely think of addressing someone by their name and that’s that. VDP allows you to personalize your marketing materials in a variety of ways. You can customize information such as personalized offers based on an individual’s purchasing history, or even switch up images or graphics to appeal to a specific audience demographic. Take it a step further by combining VDP with your digital marketing efforts and set up a landing page with a custom URL for each prospect.
How variable data printing benefits your small business
One-to-one target marketing
One-to-one marketing, also called relationship marketing, is when consumer data is used to curate custom messages and product offerings for prospects or customers. This type of marketing communicates directly to a specific customer with a goal of delivering a personalized experience. This strategy encourages engagement and can significantly increase your response rates per campaign. Not only is your audience likely to interact with customized messages specific for them, it will also be more enjoyable of an experience. This will help build positive rapport with your customer base and bring them back for more. Everyone likes to feel heard and seen after all.
Supports your digital marketing
Think of the personalized ads and emails you receive in the digital world. VDP is just like that, only in tangible printed form. A physical piece of paper that someone can hold in their hands will stay front of mind much longer than an email someone can immediately send to the trash, oftentimes without even a single glance. You can even combine your VDP with your online marketing by establishing custom landing pages that utilize customer data to present personalized messaging. Include custom links to these pages on your print marketing materials using VDP.
Relationship building
Variable data printing is focused around user experience, meaning it is a fantastic way to build and maintain your relationships with customers and prospects. Customer values are key to your marketing success, especially in today’s day and age. One-to-one marketing allows your business to continue to foster your current relationships as well as form and build new ones with your prospects. Personalizing communications such as welcome messages, coupons or other product offers are easy and powerful ways to help your customer feel valued and that you understand them. Small efforts, such as this, go a long way.
Increased ROI
It’s no secret that personalized marketing messages help you stand out and foster your relationship with your customers. Naturally this will provide a better return on investment for your marketing campaigns utilizing VDP. VDP allows you to better target your audience based on things such as age, location and more. Direct targeting like this helps get your message in front of the right people faster. It is imperative you do your research on your audience to ensure you are targeting the right demographic.
Tracking capabilities
An important aspect of marketing is tracking your success. You won’t know if your efforts are worth it if you don’t know how your marketing strategies are performing. By using customized coupon codes or barcodes, you can track exactly who from your audience takes the desired action in a campaign. In turn, you can use that data to continue to tailor your campaigns to their best performance.
Variable data printing with Printivity
If you are looking to bring your VDP marketing campaign dreams to fruition, look no further because Printivity is your one stop shop. Whether you are hoping to print custom catalogs or mini posters, VDP can be done on almost any job. Printivity has a variety of options for your variable data printing needs, including but not limited to booklets, postcards, catalogs and mini posters. Contact Printivity at 1-877-649-5463 to get your project started today.
