The effectiveness of customised documents is a result of their capacity to increase response rates using specific information on each client, as opposed to the generic messages of mass direct marketing. In personalised marketing campaigns, this increase in response rate is achieved by including a person’s name, a company name or some reference to the sector, a signature, a logo and/or an image or graphic.

When there are between 1 and 3 variable elements on each page it is known as a basic personalisation.

Normally these documents use a simple template with a fixed format that allows variable information to be inserted in specific areas. Each of these variable elements has the same form and format to simplify the layout in the area(s) of the template.The data comes from a marketing database (Acces or Excel) or directly from Web forms.

Among the applications for this are personalised direct mail, simple commercial mailshots, personalised postcards, bulletins and magazines aimed at specific clients or staff of a big company with a large workforce, presentations aimed at a certain audience and other types of messages with known demographics.