Print in the Mix is providing access to a PODi case study on the use of personalized direct marketing to Virginia Military Institute’s alumni. The campaign included email, direct mail, Personalized URLs and video and achieved an overall direct marketing response rate of 23%:

The VMI Foundation is a private, non-profit corporation that annually raises millions of dollars in gifts and commitments for the Virginia Military Institute. DENMAR Information Technologies developed a direct marketing campaign that would engage VMI Alumni in a new and relevant manner and gather key information about alumni to be used in future fundraising campaigns. The campaign included email, direct mail, Personalized URLs and video and achieved an overall direct marketing response rate of 23%.

The case study is accessible until April 30, 2010.

Last week WhatTheyThink presented a Webinar with MindFireInc titled Does personalization really work? Statistically sound research and live use cases tell the story (Streaming Archive). The Webinar provided an overview of a study conducted by Marnie Brow, Ph.D. on response rates personalized cross-media marketing campaigns.

The study compared response rates of more than 650 real-life personalized cross-media campaigns, with data from DMA and PODi to statistically demonstrate the uplift that can be gained from relevant, personalized communications.

You can download the study free of charge from MindFireInc.

Have you noticed? The best practices for personalized URLs are becoming more sophisticated. You may not always see those best practices listed, but they are being reflected more and more often in industry case studies. It’s really neat to see the evolution.

It struck me because, earlier this week, I released an update to “Personalized URLs: Beyond the Hype,” a primer and training and educational tool for printers and marketers.  In the best practices section, I had previously separated out the best practices into two categories: those commonly seen in industry case studies and those not yet commonly seen but practiced by some of the industry’s leading practitioners. During the process of updating the report, however, it struck me the extent to which the two are converging. In fact, in the October 2009 update I removed the distinction between the two classifications.
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