Direct mail that introduces visual detail as part of the campaign has been proven to be much more effective than text alone. It’s something like a 12% success rate, vs. 1% for traditional direct mail.

Recently, I got a letter from Air Miles, a loyalty card program, and a 3 things caught my eye.

First, the cover of the piece. It had some info for me – in color: Not too unusual, as CorelDRAW can do stuff like this already through regular print merging.

The next part had a photo of the branch Manager in my area, and a greeting from him. This would be data that would change – on the fly – during the print run. It would be based possibly on which store I frequent based on purchase history, or by postal code of the store relative to where I live. (I didn’t include a copy for this blog post.)

The next component was the most interesting to me: The food store keeps track of my favorite purchases. Custom coupons – with photos of those highly specific products – were tailor-made to my personal inclinations.

So… they “got me”. I tend to buy these things ongoing anyway, but the “deal” was something I couldn’t resist. Some people are nervous about what data is held about them by businesses. I personally don’t mind – if it leads to me getting coming out ahead somehow.