Page 199 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

93 USE PERSONAL DATA
INTELLIGENTLY

I’m old enough to remember when mail-merging arrived on the
scene. At a stroke, we were freed from our “Dear Client” direct mail
letters. Now, we could address our customers individually (provided
we had the data). But the rest of our copy was still pretty static.
Occasionally we may have referred to our reader’s company by name
but that was about it.

That was b2b. In b2c copywriting, it was as if the whole world had
gone from monochrome to Technicolor. Did you thrill as you read
those breathless sales letters suggesting how envious your neighbors
at 32 and 36 Railway Cuttings would be of your new block-paved
driveway? I did. (It palled after a while.)

The idea

From the International Direct Marketing Fair, and other clients
When Reed Exhibitions asked me to write their exhibitor marketing
campaign for the IDMF, the brief asked for copy that they could
adapt to their personalized marketing campaign. Working with
Lorien Unique, a dynamic content marketing specialist, the IDMF
created highly personalized marketing campaigns aimed at each
individual on their mailing list.

The idea extended to the visitor registration campaigns, with, among
other formats, The Daily IDMF, a digital comic book-style promo
that featured the recipient in the story, right down to the speech
bubbles and picture captions. This is what I would call intelligent,
not to mention extremely creative, use of personal data.

190 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS