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Date:
March 2008
Type of Promotional Material/Activity Tested:
Implementation and integration of personalized communications through such media as e-mail, personalized URLs (PURLs), digital advertising, direct mail, dimensional mailers, newsletters, transpromotional documents and more.
Over 700 senior executives ranging from CEO, CMO, SVP and VPs of Marketing from across technology, Internet, telecommunications, media, professional services, banking/ finance, retail, consumer goods and manufacturing. 45% represent companies with annual revenue of $100 million or more.
Most of the survey participants were senior marketing or sales executives, though 13% were CEO or president and 27% of respondents “other” with titles, including “VP” and “Chief Strategy Officer”.
Methodology:
A twenty-four question online survey.
Metrics:
Top marketing executives insights into the various effects of customized content, collateral and personalized web interaction on marketing effectiveness, customer acquisition, retention, and business outcomes.
Top Line Results:
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Senior executives indicate that increasing customer retention and loyalty (39.4%), building ROI (37.4%), and improving response and close rates (36.9%) are the three top reasons driving personalization strategies.
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More than 52% view e-mail campaigns as the primary opportunity to personalize their customer interactions and customized website content is second at 38.8%. The majority (66.1%) currently use personalized emails in their marketing campaigns.
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Respondents rate personalization activities effectiveness:
| Individualized e-mails and letters |
55.2% |
| Targeted database marketing leveraging personal profiles |
34.5% |
| Opt-in, permission-based marketing programs |
29.6% |
| Variable Data Printing |
21.0% |
| Print-on-demand collateral with personalized content |
17.6% |
| Personalized URLs (PURLs) |
15.9% |
| Transpromotional communications |
3.8% |
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The top 3 personalization communication activities tested or evaluated but not embraced:
| Personalized URLs |
22.1% |
| Individual e-mails and letters |
20.9% |
| Web site page delivery based on search history |
20.7% |
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Print–based personalization methods tested or evaluated but not embraced:
| Print-on-demand with personalized content |
15.1% |
| Variable Data Printing |
12.8% |
| Transpromotional documents |
12.8% |
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In designing personalized communications programs, respondents cite their customers' purchase history as their main consideration (46.8%) and yet roughly half of executives report having only “fair” to “poor” knowledge of their customers in terms of areas such as demographics, behavioral data, and transactional data.
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In examining key challenges for integrating personal communications, nearly half indicate inadequate systems and infrastructure, 46% indicate a lack of customer data/insight, and 43% sight cost and complexity.
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When asked “Has your personal communications investments performed better than traditional mass market delivery?” over 56% of respondents say that personalized communications outperform traditional mass market advertising while 5.6% say personalization has not performed better. A large number, nearly 4 out of 10, state they do not know how their personalization strategies compare to traditional marketing communication techniques.
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Personalized communication efforts are said to be effective overall by many respondents. However, finding an accurate way to measure and track the results remains an obstacle.
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The top 3 reported metrics marketers report using to measure the success of personalization: conversion and close rates, e-mail opening and forwarding rates, and web site traffic and page views.
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Most marketers said they expected to increase their budget allocations for personalization in 2008:
| More than 20% |
25.3% |
| 15-20% |
14.7% |
| 10-15% |
15.1% |
| Less than 10% |
23.1% |
| Not sure |
21.8% |
Take Away:
"Personalized marketing techniques are still in the early stages of being integrated into most companies’ marketing campaigns and budgets. While the need for quantifiable tools for gauging effectiveness and ROI exists, marketers are also lagging on adoption due to the lack of accurate and reliable customer data sources. However, the majority of marketers who have implemented strategic personalized marketing techniques have seen decidedly greater success over traditional mass marketing approaches.”
Complexity rating: 1 out of 3
(Complex statistical analysis scale: 1= none, 2= moderate, 3 = difficult)
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