Advertisers continuously look for more targeted and innovative strategies to speak personally to their target audience.  With today’s printing technology, magazine publishers can offer 1to1 strategies that relate personally to their readers as well as offer similar options to their advertisers.

In fact consumers expect to receive content with ever-higher relevance levels, including advertising. Part of the reason is that media are saturating consumers with information. To earn readership and maximize return on advertising dollars, magazines must now answer the fundamental question readers ask, “Are you talking to me?”

Magazines Can Grow from Personalization!

The good news is that printing technology now enables measurable and targeted magazine campaigns similar to direct response media. The beauty of magazine personalization is that it delivers the best of both worlds—proven brand building along with the ability to speak to individual readers.

Why Should You Use Personalization Strategies?

Publishers should consider using personalization strategies to:

• Make magazines competitive with other personalized media
• Match Up! cover content to the subscriber by calling out a specific section of the magazine
• Create a more engaged, loyal readership
• Develop personalized subscription renewal tactics
• Test spin-off magazines by interest or region
• Provide unique advertising opportunities that attract more advertisers
• Build advertiser loyalty through superior performance

Advertisers Know the Value of Personalization

Whatever the industry or media, everyone feels the demand for greater sophistication and personalization.  There is also more pressure to show results from marketing expenditures, which pushes advertisers toward measurable direct response media ranging from direct mail to web-driven campaigns. Offering personalization options within magazine pages allows advertisers to:

• Speak to the audience at a variety of personalization levels
• Use an innovative strategy to break through the clutter
• Reach only subscribers that fit their target profile
• Add measurability to their print advertising program
• Expand testing opportunities
• Improve return on investment

What’s more, all types of advertisers can benefit from personalization strategies. National advertisers with a portfolio of products or brands could vary products or brands per region; or a local advertiser could use national publications and send inserts only to the local subscribers.  For example, a farmer growing corn in the Midwest doesn’t necessarily have the same content interests as a farmer growing cotton in the South, and their advertisers don’t necessarily want to offer the same products and services.

How the Technology Works

From low-end inkjet imaging to high-end variable data output from a digital press there is a wide range of personalization options possible for magazines.

Versioning

• Allows you to create different static-content covers, advertising inserts or editorial signatures that are “selectively” bound according to a reader’s region, age, income and a wide range of geographic/demographic factors.

Match Up!

• The ultimate in 1to1 personalization for publishers and their advertisers. The technology uses an optical character recognition (OCR) system to selectively insert highly personalized covers, outserts and ads. This capability can be installed on any type of finishing equipment— stitcher, binder or polybagger—and enables you to Match Up! any preprinted 1to1 personalized piece to the subscriber’s name.
• The key is in the bar code printed on the personalized preprinted piece. The optical recognition system on the finishing equipment reads the bar code and matches the personalized piece to the publication, which is then inkjet addressed to the specific subscriber at the end of the line.

Where to start

The first step is to look at the possible options and decide which ones are the most relevant to your publication’s growth. Naturally, you will also need to consider which advertisers might be interested in these kinds of personalization options as part of your evaluation process.

Ask your print provider what personalization capabilities they offer and how other magazine publishers have used them successfully in the past. For cost consideration, you should plan on adding the cost of printing the personalized components, which will vary depending on the quantities, format and technology employed. As well, as add an extra cost to cover for the slow-down created on the finishing equipment.  The surcharge is usually small and it is easily offset by the greater return on investment.

Does everything sound great but you’re having trouble thinking about the data issues? Read on to learn how to get over the data hurdle in "Personalization Tips".

Contact your Transcontinental representative to see which personalization options are right for you.