HOME
INDUSTRY
LISTS & SERVICES
LEARNING CENTER
ABOUT
CONTACT
REQUEST A QUICK QUOTE

Archive for December, 2008

Spanish Direct Mail Marketing

December 10th, 2008

* English and Español

The Hispanic community in the United States is far from homogeneous. South Americans and Central Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Argentinians all make up the 43 million strong Hispanic population of the United States. They share, however, one crucial bond: language. When asked, 36% of Hispanics prefer their advertising direct mail in Spanish, while 39% prefer it in English. But 72% receive almost all of their advertising direct mail in English. So how will your communications get to Hispanics in the language they prefer? Easy enough: Reach them with bilingual Direct Mail pieces!

Conclusion
Direct mail is an excellent way to communicate with prospects within the Hispanic community and accommodate their language preferences. Direct Mail pieces can be prepared in both English and Spanish, allowing you to reach and connect with Hispanics, regardless of their language preference. Take advantage of the potential of using multiple languages in your mailings to make sure your direct mail message will be understood.

* A Hispanic Opportunity

The direct mail moment is an exciting time for most households. It’s when every family opens their mail and looks forward to what they will receive. But this moment is even more special in Hispanic households. They look forward to the mail they receive, including advertising and commercial mailings. In fact, 50% of all Hispanics think they receive the right amount of direct mail promotional material in the mail, and 15% would like to receive more direct mail!

Moreover, Hispanics are six times less likely than non-Hispanics to discard their direct mail without looking at it.

Hispanics look forward to their direct mail, but they also receive less of it. On average, Hispanic households receive 4 mail pieces per day, which is 20% fewer pieces than the average non-Hispanic household.

Conclusion
Hispanics are receptive to direct mail and also enjoy it.  By sending direct mail to Hispanics, the direct mail marketer will differentiate itself from the competition because Hispanics receive so few mail pieces.

*Target: Latinas

Latinas love to shop and that’s a fact!  56% of all Hispanics said they love to shop, while only 39% of non-Hispanic Americans agreed.  And they put their money where their mouths are:  Hispanics spent $1,992 last year on clothing and accessories.  That’s almost $900 more than non-Hispanic Americans.v Plus, women are twice as likely than men to make a purchase after being persuaded by Direct Mail pieces.  Go ahead and make Latinas a target for your advertising mail.

Conclusion
Target Latinas with catalogs and encourage them to indulge in their love of shopping.  Also, if you sell beauty products, consider direct mailing samples and scent strips to pique their interest.  Remember, Hispanics are likely to open your advertising direct mail, so they will enjoy the samples you send them.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Ethnic DM | No Comments »

African-American Direct Mail Marketing

December 10th, 2008

The African-American population is its own unique ethnic group as much as Italians or Germans or the French.  They have various classes of affluency, taste, political attitude and lifestyle.  Understanding these differences, and the need to speak to these “clusters” of people, will allow you to make great progress in winning the direct mail business within this and any ethnic group.

The dangers of pigeon holing

As all clusters of the population differ in buyer behavior, regardless of ethnicity, direct mail marketers must take notice of responder patterns and attempt to learn how these response clusters continually evolve.  It’s naïve to assume that all African Americans will react favorably or unfavorably to a direct mail offer that includes photo’s of African American celebrities, just as it’s naïve to assume that all retires will respond the same to a direct mail piece including photo’s of people older than age 65.

The beauty of direct mail marketing is that’s its measurable.  And the importance of including a track-able response vehicle with every direct mail campaign is paramount.  Your ability to identify the various ethnic groups in your internal mailing list is helpful, but to ignore the various splinter groups within each of these ethnic groups, or worse, to assume that all people of one ethnicity will respond the same is naïve.  It’s like saying that all people who speak English respond the same.  So how does the modern day, tech savvy direct mail marketer differentiate the various types of people within a common ethnicity?

The answer is neither simple, nor quick, but is possible and profitable.  Developing your thread of communication between your brand and the various clusters of response clusters within your internal customers/prospect mailing list is done asking questions and getting answers.  You can ask your audience questions through simple questionnaires or by using testing various offers through your direct mail campaigns.  You can also get answers from 3rd party sources by appending demographic and psychographic elements to your internal mailing list thus turning the simple names and address on our mailing list into a more enhanced story telling database.  What patterns do you see between the various responses?  What differences are you finding between your internal customer mailing list and those residing in your market territory?

So as not to belabor this point any further, I will simply conclude that like any ethnic group, there are many many types of people.  Be careful in pigeon holing any ethnicity and mail all to them with the same direct mail piece creative.

African American mailing list compilation

First, a clarification of terminology.  There are African- Americans and other people of African descent residing in the United States, including Ibo, Hausa, Zulu, Xhosa, and many other ethnic groups.  We use the term “African American” for convenience, but would work as well with an international mailing list as an “African” list.  Traditionally, marketers had to rely upon direct response mailing lists such as subscribers to publications geared to African-American audiences or upon encoding systems which could identify English, Scotch, French, Irish, Welch, and Dutch surnames that resided in traditionally non-white neighborhoods.  So you had your choice of either pretty good quality without quantity, or a little more quantity without as much quality.  Large numbers of African-Americans are not identified as either they were not subscribers or they could not be identified using the surname approach.  This is where the spelling of the first name drastically improves the quantity.  By using first names uniquely given to African-Americans, being able to identify African first and last names, including analysis of Islamic first names used in conjunction with borrowed surnames or African surnames, we are able to identify African-Americans no matter where they live with an accuracy rivaling direct response mailing lists.Name analysis is an art and science when creating an ethnic mailing list.  Even when the names on a list are hyphenated, slightly misspelled, or the person is brand new to this country, there is a good chance it can be correctly identified.  Good ethnic mailing list data is crucial to improving direct mail marketing results.
Tying it all together

There are many “managed” mailing list databases that contain different types of African Americans.  Many of which tell a story beyond the color of skin.  There are various mailing list databases that have originated from responders who fit a certain profile and would best be classified as Conservative Upscale more than anything else.  There are other mailing lists that might bring to mind the fast and chaotic pace of the youthful “hip-hop” culture full of young adults with passion and hope.  Still there are other mailing lists containing African Americans considered to be more mainstream Americans with white picket fences, a dog and a garden and haven’t missed bible study in years.

Whatever your product or service, make a decision not of what mailing list cluster most closely resembles the type of people who would be interested in your product, but rather, what do we know about the population available to direct mail advertise to and develop your product and pitch around those specific audience.  Version your direct mail message to speak to the heart of this direct mail audience.  Your entire direct mail campaign should be developed with the prospect in mind.

So ask the questions, get the answers, and speak relevance.  Doing this better than your competition is the key to success.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Ethnic DM | No Comments »

Furniture Store Direct Mail Marketing

December 10th, 2008

Direct mail marketing for furniture store retail is essential to the success of maintaining foot traffic in furniture showrooms across any city. With heavy competition all vying for the attention of the too few buyers of residential furniture, the industry is liken to the auto dealership market. Like the auto dealership market, furniture stores sell most of their products on the weekend sales, offer financing, continually upgrade their merchandise, and attempt to position themselves differently amongst their competitors. The furniture store marketer integrates their brand message within the primary advertising mediums; direct mail, newspaper print, television, and online presence.

The direct mail marketing advantage

Direct mail marketing’s primary advantage is that it’s highly measurable. Every campaign dollar spent can be measured for performance by tracking response. The furniture store marketer can use direct mail to advertise a clearance sale or special financing offer but require the direct mail recipient to bring the direct mail piece with them when they come into the store to redeem the offer. Maybe it’s an RSVP for personal tour through the showroom, or a coupon for discount on certain furniture items. This direct mail piece is the recipients’ ticket to take advantage of the special offer. Too many beginning furniture store direct mail marketers lack an offer that is measurable and miss out on valuable response information. The primary goal to including a direct mail response measurement vehicle is to attempt to learn what’s working and what’s not working, how subtle changes in the mailing list, offer, creative, and timing affect the response. Direct mail can be measured to as high a degree as the direct mailer is willing to track it. And because this is so, great strides can be made as to the best mailing list audience, offer and creative direct mail piece.

Customer Mailing List Profiling

Though most anyone is a good candidate for furniture, there are more responsive people than others. Some direct mail campaigns attract some kind of people, while others attract other kinds of people. There’s no better way to determine the most responsive direct mail audience than to consider the previous customers of your furniture store. This can be done by providing your customer mailing list to a professional mailing list broker who’s experienced in database profiling. Your goal is to identify the differences within your internal customer mailing list as it compares to the rest of the population in the same market territory. Presumably, these other people are shoppers of your competition, because, well frankly, everyone needs to find a couch to sit on and if they’re not buying from you, they’re buying from someone else.

So how does the furniture direct mail marketer utilize his/her resources to capture information about their customer mailing list? It is easily done by having a number of elements of demographic and psychographic elements appended to the internal customer mailing list data. Then you look for patterns within the elements you’ve found, such as what’s the income range that most closely resembles your existing customers. This is done with other data elements until you come up with a description of these most “common” audience.

Market territory

The furniture direct mail marketer can also utilize their existing customer mailing list to determine their most natural market footprint. There are several things that affect the market territory beyond the need for the furniture. They are listed below:

* Driving distance
* Natural distractions such as driving on a bridge over a river or around a mountain
* Competition within the metro-area your store is located
* Traffic congestion between you and your prospects
* Easy of deliverability

All the above items shape the market territory of your furniture business. Developing a clear picture of where your customers will come from is aid in increasing your direct mail marketing campaign. The easiest way to accomplish this is to again, use your existing mailing list containing the mailing address of your customers. From here, you can append the carrier routes to each and every mailing list record you have on your database. These carrier routes and then be tabulated such that you can rank the most populated carrier routes to the least populated carrier routes. Those routes which are most populated should be your most ideal market territory and those routes with the least should be your least favorite to market to.

Furniture finance marketing

Keep in mind that a big part of the furniture direct mail marketers effort is to sell financing, not furniture. All furniture is attractive at the right price, so if you can direct mail a message that offers furniture, along with no payments, no interest for a period of such and such a date, the direct mail recipient is now challenged with deciding not to take furniture with no money down, instead of weighing out the option of wanting furniture enough to find the money to pay for it. The furniture buying experience changes for the direct mail recipient by installment payments, and for the direct mail furniture marketer by managing payment terms on more furniture sold.

Alt mailing list options

* New homeowner mailing list

New homeowners are a great target audience because new homeowners typically want to fill their new home with new furniture. Because they’ve just purchase a new home, they have exhausted their savings making the down payment but still need/want to complete their home. This target mailing list audience is perfect for the No Money Down/No Payments until the year XXXX. We can assume they’ve done everything they could to clean up their credit score so they should have no problem with the financing.

* Newly weds mailing list

Newly weds are a great mailing list audience to consider because no matter what furniture the new husband brings to the table, it’s hand carried to the curb usually within weeks of the marriage. The newly wed mailing list is not very large relative to the number of potential consumer mailing list records there are available but they are highly responsive to total make-over furniture plans.

* New Movers mailing list

The new movers mailing list is sometimes a good file to direct mail market to under certain conditions. Unlike the new homeowner mailing list, the new mover mailing list doesn’t account for the ability to finance the loan for new furniture. The new movers mailing list is great for those clearance sales that liquidate dated, but new furniture.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Furniture Retail | No Comments »

Furniture Store Clearance Sale Marketing

December 10th, 2008

Within the real of furniture store direct mail marketing, there exists a program that most retail future store direct mail marketers adopt, and that is the clearance sale.  The almighty “everything must go close out sale”.  This direct marketing program works best for the sheer fact that people are always on the hunt for new furniture and those people in close proximity will more likely drop in to take a look around.  But not all people will drop in and not all people are likely in the market.  So how does clearance sale direct mail marketer maximize his/her direct marketing return on investment?  How do we choose to add to our mailing list, those people more likely to become direct mail responders than those who likely won’t respond?  The answer is in a three part strategy.

Direct Mail Strategy Part One

The first part of your direct mail marketing strategy is in mailing to your existing customers.  Those people, who are familiar with your brand, are more likely to recall your showroom, want something they didn’t purchase the first time, and come back quickly before the showroom is “picked over”.  This mailing list should include both previous shoppers as well as lookiloo’s.  Anyone who’s familiar and semi-interested in your type of furniture.  If you’re making room for the new line of items, everything must go.  This message must be expressed in every direct mail piece you mail out, in every print space ad you post, and in every radio spot you air.

Direct Mail Strategy Part Two

Those people who’ve already shopped and bought at your store all have common interests and buyer ability.  They all considered your furniture selection over other stores in the local area.  Why?  What differentiates you from the furniture stores in the area?  And what are they doing to promote their store location?  Are they using direct mail marketing?  Do they mail to their internal customer database?  What are they saying and how do they position themselves to the other competitors?

Using your existing internal mailing list of existing customers, you can clone “look-a-likes” of these very same people.  You can actually mimic these very same people to find new potential direct mail prospects that have the same characteristics, lifestyle interests, and furniture buying ability.  You can also identify how far those best direct mail marketing customers might consider driving to find you.  Talk to your mailing list broker for more information on the ability to profile your customers, to find new customers.

Direct Mail Strategy Par Three

In your review of existing customers, you can use your existing internal customer mailing list to determine how far those customers drove to shop at your store.  What you will find is that a large portion of your customers all found you within the same or similar geographic territory.  Here you can make the assumption that more people will likely drive the same or similar distance if invited via direct mail.  So consider mailing to everyone within the same geographic area’s of your existing customers.  Those people who live near the furniture store location and recognize the building, the parking lot, and the big sign outside.  These potential direct mail prospects are good prospects because they are local in nature, and are great for walk-in traffic customers on the way to the grocery store.

Going forward

Each year, your potential prospect mailing list will continue to grow.  It’s important to keep good records of those people who not only purchase your from your store, what they buy, and how much they spend, but it’s also important to keep tabs on those who stop in the store, what they look at but don’t purchase, how often do they come in?  The more you add to your internal mailing list of customers and prospects, the better you can communicate with these prospects.  Each of these prospects that stop in to check out your selection from time to time should all receive an invite to the clearance sale.  As this mailing list builds over time, semi-sales and special RSVP invites are perfect for this segment of your mailing list.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Furniture Retail | No Comments »

Planning your Direct Mail Campaign

December 10th, 2008

When planning your next direct mail campaign, there are a number of items a direct mail marketer should not do without.  The key to success with any direct mail marketing campaign is the preparation.  Before you begin, be sure you know what your costs will be, that you’re matching your direct mail piece with your mailing list audience, and that you measure your direct mail response.

Keeping within budget
Every direct mail campaign will have costs that change from time to time.  The paper cost your mail piece is printed on will change from year to year, the postage cost continues to rise, and your mailing list cost adjusts as well.  But don’t forget, your time.  The more time you spend on each of these campaigns, the more they cost.  All these costs, whether they are true dollars, or extra time spent do to lack of preparation, affect your bottom-line return on investment from the sales leads your campaign produces.

So let’s start with your mailing list.  When determining the total number of mail pieces you want to mail, make sure you have an ideal mailing list to target.  Don’t assume there’s an infinite number of people to mail to that’s ideal for your product or service.  If you’ve got a limited budget, does it make sense to mail to a more targeted audience, or try to reach as many people on the smallest budget.  The biggest mistake business owners make is that though they know and understand their market better than anyone, they rarely understand their direct mail marketing.  Talk with marketing business that’s doing the printing and/or letter shop and get as many different viewpoints as possible on this subject.

Once you’ve narrowed down your ideal mailing list audience and feel comfortable with the best test quantity, tally up your direct mail campaigns printing, mailing, and postage costs.  Be sure to include those small costs involved with the entire campaign such as cost for the creative design work you’ll have done for the direct mail piece.  Also include the cost to include a live stamp on your “standard rate” postage if you’re going to include this on your direct mail piece.  And finally, don’t forget the cost of measurement vehicle.  Are you going to include a Business Reply Mail card attached to each of your direct mail pieces?  If so, how many are you expecting to come back?  Remember, you’ll be paying a premium for postage on those return replies.  What other kind of costs are involved with measuring your response?

Match the mail piece with the audience
Before you assume you know what you want to offer on your direct mail piece, be sure it matches the mailing list audience you plan to mail to.  Depending on who you are mailing to, you may want to have a talk with your mailing list broker to see if you can learn more about the people on the mailing list you’re about to test.  Let’s say you’re an outdoor lighting company offering specialty residential lighting to high-end homes.  If your budget allows you to mail to all homeowners with a home value of $500,000 or greater and your list broker runs a count and determines there are over 25,000 homeowners that fit that criteria, consider mailing multiple versions of your direct mail piece that more appropriately communicates to a particular segment of the mailing list.  Your mailing list broker can tell you which of those homeowners are within the senior market as compared with those that are homes with children or homes where the owner lives in another states the majority of the time.  Knowing this before hand, you’re now able to include different photography of the people on the direct mail piece that better fit who will receive your offer.  Depending on the city you’re mailing into, you may find that there are just as many homes with a value of $500,000 to $750,000, as there are with the value of $1,000,000 to $2,000,000+.  It’s not difficult to assume that the home lighting needs in those two home value ranges don’t greatly differ.  Make an offer that better addresses the two audiences and spell this out those direct mail pieces that reach this audience.

The same holds true when using your own internal customer mailing list.  Even though you know who your customers are, with the help of a good mailing list broker, you can append certain types of mailing list element data to your internal customer mailing list.  Doing so allows you to see if there are any patterns or groupings within your own customer mailing list.  If so, you may be able to capitalize on this knowledge by mailing a different offer to one group over another, or at least a different mail piece creative version.

Communicate, measure, and record
Consider the communication thread that’s taking place to your direct marketing audience.  Ideally it’s a two way street.  The more two way conversation you can have with your customers and prospects, the better.  Each time you hear from them, you learn something.  Record this information, no matter how trivial and use it to your advantage.  The more your prospects and customers know that you understand them, the more they’ll appreciate you a business product or service provider.

Measuring response is important to testing any direct mail campaign, but don’t stop there.  Measure the responder too who responded but didn’t buy.  Ask yourself what they all have in common and see if you can draw any conclusions to this commonality.  You may find that they are all located around your competition or all within a certain age and income bracket.  If so, plan not to include that age and income bracket on your next campaign, or consider mailing and alternate direct mail piece to that segment of the population the next time.

Also consider mailing over and over within the same geographic territory.  In doing so, you might learn that some segments of the mailing list population response on the first drop, while the greatest response occurs between 2 and 4 drops.  The more you can measure your direct mail campaigns, the better able you are to improving your direct mail return on your investment.

Tags: , ,
Posted in DM Data Advanced | No Comments »

Defining Your Target Audience

December 10th, 2008

Careful consideration should be taken when determining who your direct mail audience is.  You may have the ideal direct mail offer that pulls at the heart strings of a good prospect, but if mailed to the wrong audience, the mail piece may end is zero sales leads.  Likewise, mailing to the perfect audience and with a lack-luster offer could also end in little to no sales lead response.

One way to define your direct mail audience is to through mailing list data modeling.  Data modeling is a process of using a mailing list of existing good customers to better understand who to mail to in order to find new customers.  Done correctly, data modeling can segment your existing customers as defined by what they’ve purchased, how frequent they purchase, and how much they spend.  The more transactional and response measurement you’ve recorded on your existing customer database, the better you’ll be able to not only build a better mailing list for future mailings but you’ll also be able to mail these new prospects the more likely offer they’ll respond to.

This data modeling process is done by using your existing mailing list of “good customers”, those names and addresses of existing customers, and defining which mailing list records purchase Product A vs. Product B, which mailing list records purchase 12 times a year vs. which purchase twice a years, and which have purchased year after year vs. which purchased just once then disappeared.  The names and address of this mailing list are then matched to a master database of all the names and addresses in the entire U.S.  Any demographic or psychographic information contained on those matched records on the master file are recorded and evaluated.  The data modeling demographer attempts to draw conclusions by looking for patterns within the various transactional segments provided.

Also considered is the patterned of differences found but evaluating those residence within the various geographic markets found on the internal customer mailing list.  How do the direct mail marketer customers look differently to those residences within the same market?  The more defined these similarities and differences become, the better the direct mail marketer can size up who they will want to mail to in the future.  They may discover that the existing customers all have a specific income and child age within the household.  Knowing that, one can now identify other “look-alike” households in the same area and spend more direct mail dollars mailing just them.

Tags: , ,
Posted in DM Data Advanced | No Comments »

Mailing List Personalization

December 10th, 2008

The importance of including a personal name within the mailing address label where ever possible instead of “Current Resident” could not be overstated.  People today demand to be spoken to as individuals.  The better you know your direct mail prospects and direct mail customers, the better you’ll be able to communicate to them – and the more likely you’ll experience a favorable direct mail response.  By including a persons name on the direct mail piece, your message becomes more compelling and your offer becomes more credible.

Personalized Digital Direct Mail Printing

In today’s advanced technology, digital printing allows the direct mail marketer to include the personalized names within the content of the mail piece as well as mailing label such that every direct mail piece will be unique.  Further, this technology allows the direct mail marketer to include personalized variable text.  You may have multiple segments within your mailing list.  Each of these segments can receive a different text message on the same print run.  This technology allows the direct mail marketer to get as personal as he/she wishes.

Consider the following example.  An established real estate office has 19 agents prospecting the local market.  Each of these agents has a different cell phone, different email, and of course, a different photo.  Additionally, several of the agents deal exclusively with buyers where some of the others go after listing contracts, and still others do both listing and sales.  The owner of the real estate office decides to purchase a mailing list from his trusted mailing list broker.  Working with the mailing list broker, they decide on a mailing list containing both home renters and home owners.  The mailing list is also segmented to encompass specific areas around the city that include a higher end neighborhood, and many homeowners around the new school.

With digital printing, the digital print computer is programs to identify each of the segments on the mailing list and assigns each record to each of the 19 agents.  Further, depending on the record and agent, the text message includes an offer that’s custom tailored to the audience.  The outcome is that each of the agents will be making a very specific offer to the audience they are assigned to and therefore maximizing their chances of a positive response.

As the sales leads come in, the names and addresses of each are recorded and matched back to the original mailing list.  This “matching back” measurement allows the direct mail marketer to see patterns of response, match changes to the offers, creative design, and mailing list audience, so as to improve on their next direct mail campaign.  Over time, this direct mail marketer will continually understand his own unique direct mail campaign market, as well as the mailing list that captures the highest rate of quality sales leads.  The bottom line is that a higher response of more qualified sales leads means better return on direct mail investment.

Tags: , ,
Posted in DM Data Advanced | No Comments »

Direct Mail Strategies for the Multi-Location Business

December 10th, 2008

Optimizing your direct mail investment dollars for multi-location campaigns is done by considering the printing and mailing service efficiency of the entire campaign.  With cost cutting strategies to be shared among franchise owners to data capturing techniques for the head quarter marketing arm, the multi-location business can benefit from a number of simple strategies as shown below.

Printing Efficiency
Probably one of the largest expenses to your direct mail campaign is printing.  And with each store location all mailing various messages at differ times to different audiences, the process can be a monumental headache.  Ideally, your goal is to shore up as much of this print waste as possible.  One of the things you should consider is garnering all the information from each of the franchise owners in terms of what they are mailing, who they are mailing to, and what kind of response they are achieving.  Most multi-location business owners believe they know and understand their current customers already, but there is a difference between how they would describe their customers, and how one of the several national databases that compile mailing list information would describe their customers.  It’s an important distinction to be made because with this understanding, not all locations are the same.  The goal is to develop uniformity throughout your locations.  The more each of your store locations can share in their information, the better their overall response will become.  And printing the same or similar mail pieces all at the same time is far more efficient than each location manager going through the campaign execution process.

Many printers will have partnerships throughout the U.S. where it makes economic sense to print your west coast location pieces on the west coast, and your east coast on the east coast, rather than have all printed in the Midwest and have the U.S.P.S. deliver all of them individually.  Today’s digital technology allows us to easily forward the digital copy to anyone for a quick quote per volume right along with the mailing list provided in digital format.

Direct Mail Competition
Though there may be a strong demand for your product.  People may see your products and services differently as compared to they see your competition.  In one market, your product may be well received, while in a different market your competition may maintain the market lead.  Therefore, direct mail can be an excellent medium to capturing new business if you know who to go after.  Some multi-location mailers will combat the competition by mailing heavily in area’s their competition has a strong hold, while mailing less where they already have a strong presence.  This defensive strategy works well when your product and your client’s product are more similar.  The mail focus with defensive direct mail is to build brand and position your brand differently as compared to the competition.

The more you know about what your competition is doing, the better you’ll be able to campaign against them, differentiate your business products and services, and learn from your competitions mistakes.

Data Mining Opportunities
Your current list of customers may be the single most valuable asset to your business.  When it, you can make better decisions as to who to mail to in the future, and how to communicate to them.
One of the more popular data mining techniques it to enhance your mailing list database of existing good customers with a variety of demographic elements.  This is done by appending information to your existing customer database in an effort to better describe what these people look like, and especially what they do not look like.  What’s really interesting is to then compare how your customers look like as compared to the average population within the market they reside.  In many cases, you’ll find that your customers have something in common and capitalizing on this commonality is the key to mailing smart and lifting response.
With multi-location mailing, data mining can help predict both who to mail to in a new market, as well as identifying a new location for your next business opening.

Pooling Interests
Many franchise businesses utilizing direct mail as a way to increasing their business traffic will pool their marketing efforts to achieve higher discounts on printing, mailing, and mailing list data costs.  They will also share the results of their direct mail campaigns to learn from each other faster.  As a way to avoid competing with each other, they will also identify store boundaries so as to not duplicate the efforts of the other store.

Tags: , ,
Posted in DM Data Advanced | No Comments »

Mailing List Direct Mail Response

December 10th, 2008

As most direct mail marketers know, direct mail marketing is measurable.  And response percentage rate is the “barometric” measurement for success.    Direct mail is therefore more of a scientific study on what works better in terms of new customer acquisition.  And therefore, direct mail can measure the success, or failure of, a mailing list choice.

While many advertising mediums are loosely measured by an increase in revenue over time following the TV commercial, space advertising in a magazine, or radio advertising splashing the new brand over the air waves, direct mail can be specifically measured by counting new customer generated from a direct mail campaign.  With direct mail mailing lists, the direct mail marketer is able to pinpoint targets within their market and compare who well they respond to various offers.

A “good” mailing list is one in which everyone on the mailing list are, for the most part, identical.  The better mailing list is one in which each person on the mailing list share something in common.  Ideally, the more they have in common the better.

Let’s look at two mailing lists that boast international travelers.  The first is a list self-reported international travelers we’ll call International Traveler compiled from a variety of self-reported surveys, both on and off line.  The other is a list of subscribers to an international travel newsletter.  The only way the publisher of this newsletter captures these subscribers is via one banner add placed a website dedicated to informing the international traveler about immunization requirements in various countries.

With the first list of self reported international travelers, we’ve got people finding these surveys on various websites.  Each website has drawn these people from various interests.  We may also have records on the mailing list that have been captured from direct mail surveys.  Though this list may be larger and less expensive, because of the multiple source compilation, the list simply isn’t as strong as the newsletter list.

Though both lists may work well for you campaign, it’s generally accepted to compare the results of a one list over another, and mail more of the higher performing mailing list.  If there were multiple sources for your mailing list, it’s as if you’re mailing to several mailing lists at once, but not measuring the results over each.

When choosing a mailing list for your next direct mail marketing campaign, remember to question the mailing list broker about the source of the list and learn as much as you can about the number of sources, when they were captured, how they were captured, where they responding to an offer or was it that they’ve purchased something.  Can you get a usage report of other mailers who’ve tested the mailing list and have come back for a continuation, and are there enough available records in the geography you want to test within.  This will help you choose the ideal list for your campaign needs.

Tags: , ,
Posted in DM Data 101 | No Comments »

Life Event Direct Mail Marketing

December 10th, 2008

Life event direct mail marketing is an effort to identifying significant changes within a person’s life that signal a refocusing of attention to their priorities, and thus, making your offer at the crucial moment they are most likely to respond.  Direct mail marketing works well with life events because of the ability to identify a large portion of those people experiencing a significant life change, mail a very relevant and appealing message, and measure the response for future targeting.

For the most part, much of what people purchase is random, meaning that one persons decision to shop for a new sofa might happen today or in six months.  For one person It may feel to shop for a new sofa today.   For another person, shopping for a sofa today would be impossible as there are simply too many distractions.  People purchase for many random reasons:  they are bored and want to feel different, their friend just upgraded their living-room set so they want to do as others do, they are depressed and a new sofa is, in a small way, a way to replace part of their old life.  Many people shop because they are able to afford a continual circulation of new and exciting “things” within their life; they are consumers.  Still others wait until the last moment for reasons of practicality.  Whether they are simply practical and conservative by nature, or they cannot afford to shop for large ticket items on a whim.  The list goes on from changing an old look to a new look because they’ve watched a good movie or read a good book, or they want others to see them differently.  With direct mail to random buyers, your goal is to reinforce your brand, nurture those reasons to act now and make a purchase, and position your new product or service as better than their current product or service.  If your direct mail recipients are not buyers today, your direct mail piece will hopefully register in their memory for when they are in the market.  Over time, a small percentage will respond to your direct mail offer because you’ve brought their decision to respond to the forefront of their mind.  They are now ready, and you were the one they chose.

Life event marketing suggests something different than the random.  Life event marketing suggests that there are times in a person’s life in which there is a higher degree of attention for change.  It suggests that outside of random buying behavior of the average American, there are times when people are more predictably responsive to a direct mail marketing campaign.  Life event direct mail marketing is designed to communicate a highly relevant offer to a highly relevant audience via their mail box.

Throughout a person’s life, a number of life events occur that shifts ones focus and financial priority.  People all experience changes in life, whether they be planned or unplanned, happy or sad.  Along with this shift in priority comes a shift in spending habits, making life event mailing list data an ideal direct mail audience for many products and services.

Tags: ,
Posted in Life Event Marketing | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »