"Happy birthday Nikki. April 20, 2015"
Customers often post pictures of their personalised menus online. And share them on places like Facebook etc.
The end result is that Morton's get some great advertising at very little cost to them.
What Morton's has done is they have personalised some of their normal printed material and this makes it more effective.
One of the big advantages of digital printing today is that it makes it very easy to personalise both printed material and all sorts of other items as well.
And this gives you some interesting opportunities to promote your business so you are positively remembered.
For Instance:
A monthly marketing newsletter I subscribe to has my name "Graham" printed in each hard copy edition of the newsletter that is mailed to me.
This make me feel special whenever I read it.
Think about your own business:
What could you personalise using digital printing that would add value to the person you send it to?
An obvious example here is photos.
People love to look at photos of themselves and photos of people, places and things that are special to them.
I mentioned in an earlier Herald column about how a very successful car dealer takes a photo of a person with their new car.
He then has this photo featured in a handy desk top calendar that he sends to each client as a gift.
The personalised desk calendar leads to some positive repeat and referral business for this car dealer.
How about your own business?
What photos of your clients could you digitally print onto something that would add value to these clients?
Imagine you own a veterinary clinic and each client has one or more favourite pets.
Let's say one pet is a dog called Oscar.
You might like to send out a postcard four times a year with Oscars' photo and name printed on it.
Each post card could also have a short message and an offer to come into your vet clinic for Oscar to try a particular product or service that you sell.
You might even send a 'Happy birthday Oscar" post card on the birthday of this dog.
Imagine how many clients would show these personalised post cards to their friends and colleagues.
So your vet is now instantly more memorable and getting some positive publicity.
All from some very simple digital personalisation.
Many businesses today give away what we call 'Promotional Products'.
These include items like pens, caps, t shirts and so on.
Many of these items are often branded with the name of the business that gives away the promotional items.
Instead of just promoting your business on a promotional product why not personalise some of these items for your best clients or key contacts?
Let's say you own a store that sells fishing equipment.
You might choose 20 of your best customers, get a promotional product that they will find useful and have a short personalised message printed on this.
Let's say you ordered 20 fishing caps as a promotional product.
On the cap you might have a message printed that says something like this for each client.
Dave
Accountant by week
Fishing legend by weekend
Imagine how much fun Dave would now have wearing this personalised cap.
And your fishing business is now instantly more memorable.
I'm not saying you have to personalise all your printed or promotional material.
I'm suggesting that it might be worth testing 'digital personalisation' with some of this material to see if it could be a useful marketing strategy for your business.
The end result might be that your business becomes a lot more memorable.
'What makes things memorable is that they are meaningful, significant, colourful.' Joshua Foer
Take Action:
Have a chat with your local digital printer about how you could use digital printing to personalise some of the things you normally print or give away.
Graham McGregor is a consultant specialising in memorable marketing.
You can download his 396 page 'Unfair Business Advantage' Ebook at
no charge from www.theunfairbusinessadvantage.com 
