Effective use of personalized communication to influence the 18- to 25-year-old demographic to buy products and services

Today the printing industry is no longer an industry comprised of companies that just put ink on paper. Many printing companies are restructuring themselves as marketing service providers. Digital technology has leveraged the industry to utilize cross-media solutions to deliver messages to various targeted audiences. Although personalization is not something new, personalization is one of the growing trends in the printing industry. Effective use of personalized communication has helped get better response in marketing campaigns as compared to a static communication piece (Gorelick, 2010).Companies have used personalized communication to deliver specific messages to their target audiences, yet no significant studies have been done to understand the factors (if any) that influence the 18- to 25-year-old demographic. This study investigates how this demographic group responds to personalized communication and the factors, if any, that influence their decision process in buying products or services from different companies.The results for this research are based on an eleven question survey that was conducted at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. There were 143 participants of age 18-to 25 that participated in the survey. The data from the survey indicated that 62.2% of the 18- to 25-year-olds are receiving personalized messages from companies with basic name and address personalization, but only 31.5% of the participants are receiving personalized messages based on their gender, personal preferences and others. 73.7% of the participants also reported that they received personalized emails more frequently and 54.1% of the participants preferred email as medium of personal communication from companies promoting or selling their products or services. 47.6% of the 18-to 25 year old demographic liked companies they patronize sending them personalized communication information where only 11.2% of this demographic liked receiving personalized communication from companies they don't patronize. 78.3% of the participants did not like receiving personalized communication on their financial statements.The results from this study indicate that the 18- to 25 year old demographic are interested in receiving personalized communication from companies they patronize but not from companies they don't patronize, also this demographic do not like personalized communication information on their financial statements from companies promoting or selling their products or services to them. The data also indicates that their preference in receiving personalized communication from a medium increases as they receive information more frequently through that particular medium.