Take a look around—personalized communications are everywhere. There are personalized coupons at checkout counters in retail locations, and individual recommendations at Amazon.com. Marketers know that they need to effectively engage consumers and keep their products and services top-of-mind. This means that communications must be highly personalized and relevant to each recipient and communicated via the right channel. They must consider individual needs and preferences to drive consumers to take the desired actions.

The simple message is that personalization has finally gone mainstream. An April 2013 analysis report entitled The Personalization Imperative: Building the Next Generation of Personalized Customer Experiences indicated that there will be sustained investments in personalized marketing over the next two years. The use of personalized (one-to-one) marketing grew 40% between 2010 and 2012, while mass (one-to-many) marketing declined -6% during the same timeframe.

Figure 1: What percentage of your customer communications/marketing campaigns fit into the following categories?