The success of this promotion discussed below really wasn’t driven so much by ‘personalization’ as by the creativity and commitment of the marketing team. This campaign went to 4,000 carefully selected people who might buy the new Xerox printer and the marketing materials were all actually printed on the printer being marketed. Now here’s the zinger: people are actually contacting Xerox and asking to be placed on their email list! Now, that’s marketing.

CMO Magazine: Getting Personal Drives Sales at Xerox.

…while the chance to win a Mini Cooper auto in a sweepstakes no doubt was a key factor in the success of Xerox’s Igen3 campaign last summer, so was the company’s decision to create a personalized Website for each of its target prospects. The combination of personalization, an unusual prize, and attention-grabbing marketing materials touting short-run digital color printing to commercial printers enabled Xerox to sell its Igen3 process to 9.4% of the 4,000 businesses it contacted. That’s more than three times the typical response to a direct marketing sweepstakes campaign.