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For all the promise of tailored communication, marketers still have a long way to go before they take anywhere near full advantage of personalized communication, according to a new study.

Nearly 44% of high-level marketing executives indicated their use of personalized communication techniques was low, compared with 39% who said it was moderate. Only 17% felt their firms used a high level of personalization.

Making matters worse, 38% don’t even measure whether personalization has any impact on their efforts.

There are several reasons for this, said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, which sponsored the study. Marketers feel they have inadequate system infrastructure necessary for implementing personalization and measuring its impact. The cost and complexity of personalizing messages is seen as high. Marketers feel there is a dearth of data, and they have limited resources (both personnel and budgetary) to devote to these projects.

“Doing direct response marketing is complicated and multi-channel personalization is even more challenging,” Neale-May told Direct Newsline. “It requires investment in back-end infrastructures, or knowledge of the service providers out there.”

That provided a marketer is willing to even consider personalization. The study found that only 56% of marketers believe personalized communications out-perform mass-marketing. What of the 44% that reject this notion?

“There is still a large percentage of spending that goes into mass media, from marketers who haven’t embraced direct response,” said Neale-May. “There are still a lot of ad agencies that have a certain business model.

“But there are big changes in the allocation of marketing dollars,” he continued. “Direct and database marketing are becoming big areas of spend.”

In fact, the CMO Council’s research found that 55% of respondents plan to increase their marketing budget allocations by at least 10%.

How are marketers using personalization? Nearly two-thirds customize e-mail and traditional mail letters, while 47% conduct opt-in, permission-based marketing programs. Just over 40% create personalized e-mail promotions during regular intervals after an initial prospect signs up. Thirty-one percent use it to create print-on-demand collateral that incorporates personalized content, and a similar percentage uses variable digital printing.

The study included responses from more than 700 senior marketers, and was sponsored by the CMO Council; Xerox; Pitney Bowes; GMC Software; Valtira and MindFireInc.