The greatest asset any company can have is an employee that knows how to connect with their customers. They get to know them on a personal level. They spend time talking to them. They introduce them to their products and work side-by-side with them to integrate those products into their business and their daily lives.
But that takes time, and as companies are steadily cutting back on their sales force time is something they just don’t have. What if your company could do the same thing using variable digital printing?
The Day “Old-School” Variable Digital Printing Died and a Revolution Began
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, variable digital printing (also known as variable data printing, variable information printing, or VDP) is the practice of “personalizing” your correspondence by personalizing part of the content.
The simplest example? Adding your client’s name in the greeting rather than typing “Dear Friend”, or “Dear Customer”.
Now, once upon a time this sort of personalized header would be enough to have your customers smiling. Hey, a corporation actually knows their name! They must care, they took the time to put their name in instead of sending out some generic letter that wouldn’t know them from a hole in the ground.
Then people started catching on. They learned about technology that takes the name from a gigantic database of names and plugs it into the line. There wasn’t a real person writing that after all! Just another clever attempt by corporate America to make customers believe they were after more than the bottom line.
Enter the next generation of variable digital printing.
Designing for Variable Digital Printing (Or, What Are You Really Trying to Do With It?)
Using today’s variable digital printing technology you can personalize your printed marketing materials to personally reach out and touch each and every one of your customers. You can alter your graphics, along with huge hunks of text, to make it as applicable to them, personally, as possible.
Personal.
“Personal” is the magical key word of the variable digital printing world. Why? Because the key to building a successful customer base is making your products and services as personal to them, personally, as humanly possible-and if you can wander into the realm of the inhumanly possible, well, that’s even better!
It isn’t enough just to make nice, personalized pieces, however. That’s easy. What’s hard is designing those pieces with a goal in mind. As with any marketing piece, you need to ask yourself what it is you’re trying to achieve? What are you trying to accomplish?
What do I want the customer to do?
If you want your customers to buy more of your product, your variable print needs to be targeted toward getting them to buy more of your product. If you want your customers to upgrade their services, your variable print needs to be targeted toward getting them to upgrade their services.
Remember, telling them they should do it isn’t going to close the sale. Above all, it needs to tell them why they should do it.
The purpose behind variable digital printing is to take generic marketing pieces out of the equation. Remember, VDP isn’t going to personalize itself. It’s up to you to get to know your customers and make sure your printed marketing materials can close the gap.