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According to a recent InfoTrends Study (The Future of Direct Mail, 2006), direct marketing is currently at a 4.5 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), and is projected to continue this level of growth during the next 10 years. Coincident with the rise in direct marketing is the increase in both print-on-demand and variable printing; together they are slated to account for more than 170 billion color and black-and-white impressions.

The question marketers and advertising agencies continue to ask is: What is fueling the steady rise in creation and implementation of one-to-one marketing programs? The answer is: We are. The same InfoTrends study showed that consumers prefer—by twice as much—highly personal messages over mailings with only a name and address. Non-personalized messages were preferred by less than 18 percent of respondents.

Evoking Action

Clearly there is great interest in using personalized communications with relevant text, images, and graphics to gain attention, increase readership, and, most importantly, evoke action. With the emergence of powerful Web-enabled marketing programs and integrated cross-media communications, the worlds of print and electronic media are coming together to generate significant improvement in achieving business objectives.

How do marketers get started, and what are the strategies that must be employed to realize these gains?

The first step in creating and implementing a one-to-one marketing campaign is to realize there are steps. There are many different types of marketing materials and programs that can be deployed, and understanding the context and complexity of these can dramatically improve your chances of success.

Let's start at the beginning, or what could more accurately be referred to as "E-Z personalization." Many personalized print programs involve materials as simple as two-sided, full-color postcards. They can be as "one-to-one" as any other collateral, are economical, and often break through marketing clutter with clever imagery immediately seen by the recipient, in contrast to pieces where envelopes are hiding your messages.

In addition to postcards, there are numerous applications that use personalized content, including calendars, newsletters, and even sales and marketing materials. Interestingly, although "versioned" marketing materials are usually not thought of as one-to-one, these programs often lead to more advanced variable programs. Starting with versioning is a great place to experiment with what one-to-one marketing has to offer.

An emerging category of one-to-one marketing can be called "image-intensive communications" and includes applications that use more advanced databases, oftentimes relational, and rich VI content. These campaigns have images that change for either small groups of recipients, or for one recipient at a time. They can also incorporate special capabilities, such as image personalization and data-driven graphics.