Individual email messaging is good for any area in which you want to send personalized communications, whether that be for marketing, media pitches or investor relations. But don't confuse this tactic with personal salutations that can head the most generic of press releases.
Communications that are 'personalized' are designed specifically for the persons receiving them, with relevant information pertinent to each particular reader.
Say your department wishes to speak directly with investors who are concerned about your company's involvement with environmentally questionable firms. Using personalized messaging, you can converse with them directly and build a more concrete relationship.
It's a safe assumption that such attention to detail will help you garner more action from your leads. Targeting experts Jim Sterne, principal of Target Marketing, and Michael Pridemore, CEO of Socketware, a marketing strategy firm, agree that the 10-15% response rate found in personalized marketing (versus the 1% rate found in traditional direct marketing) is a great indication of what personalizing messages can do for PR.
Taking the First Steps
Meridien Research, a firm that provides information about financial technology, investigated how to successfully create a personalized message system. Researchers broke the process into two groups: gathering leads and refining your message. The first breaks down into three steps.
Gathering Leads
Automatic email analysis. Here, the analytical tool you use needs to "read" the message that is coming into your department and route it to the appropriate area (based on the interest of the message) whether that be investor relations, media relations, crisis management, internal relations or public affairs.
Choosing which online format to speak in. The majority of the over 3 trillion email messages sent last year were formatted in plain text. However, straight text doesn't take advantage of graphics and the interactive capabilities of the Internet. Make sure you know your targets' online capabilities before sending them HTML formatted color, fonts and other visuals. Finding out this information can be done through direct mail or via a phoning campaign (or through an email survey conducted in plain text).
Getting your target audience to participate in the exchange. This can happen via email or off line by mail or phone. But remember, the idea is not to offend recipients by bombarding them with multiple offers to sign up for your program. You want them to participate in a permission-based program. At first contact you will not have that permission. Tread lightly.
If a receiver is interested in the program and opts-in, you are now have permission to contact that person with the information they want from your company.
Refining Your Message
Just because a person opts into your program doesn't mean he or she will always feel that way. Things change. Continually gauge the effectiveness of your message and how well it is being received.
Refine via querying, analysis and reporting. Knowing that your messages are hitting the right people is key to getting those personal marketing response rates.
Signs that a message isn't getting through are when it's undeliverable and bounces back or when the receiver chooses to unsubscribe (a choice that needs to be a part of every message.)
(Habeshian, 617/796-2800, [email protected]; Pridemore,404/815-1998, [email protected]; Jim Sterne, 805/965-3184, [email protected].)
Taking the best marketing has to offer...
Why should the marketing department get all the credit for staying under budget while helping to boost ROI? Personalized messaging can be a boon to PR too.
It brings the notion of building a one-to-one relationship with your target audience closer to reality without inflating cost. The heavy expense of paper, printing and postage are removed, reducing the dollars usually spent in reaching your target to pennies.
Turnaround times are also increased using this tactic. Personalized messaging works at Internet speed, versus the snail's pace of traditional direct marketing.
Outside Thinking
Deciding whether to outsource depends on three things: in-house expertise, time and an available budget to bring someone in from the outside. If you're short on time and expertise but big on budget, below are some firms that specialize in personalized messaging.
Brightware
www.brightware.com
Exchange Applications
[email protected]
General Interactive
www.generalinteractive.com
Intrinsic
www.intrinsic.com
Kana
www.kana.com
MarketFirst
www.marketfirst.com/splash.html
Mustang
www.mustang.com
Paragren
www.paragren.com
Prime Response
www.primeresponse.com
Source: Meridien Research, Inc.