If there’s one question nagging on every business owner it’s, “How do I find more buyers?”  For most business owners, marketing professionals, and sales representatives, the answer is elusive, if not down right difficult.

For many, it’s easy to find more shoppers, but how do you find more buyers?  Add a free hot dog and some chips and you’ll get walk-in traffic on any weekend.  Offer a webinar with a value added proposition, you’ll get people signing up left and right.  But the buyers are really who you want to attract.  The buyers are those everyone can’t seem to find enough of.  The buyers are those who make the business stay in the black.  How do you find more buyers?  The answer is, in looking at your own database of existing buyers.  And not just those who purchased from you recently, but those who are the ideal, best customers.

Take a good look at your existing database of customers
Your existing internal customer database contains the information to truly make smart decisions.  How did you find those buyers to begin with?  What makes them better than others?  How long have they been buying from you?  And who are the most profitable?  The answer lies in first looking over those existing best customers.  You need only the names and addresses of your best customers.  Truly.  With that information, you can turn your internal database into your most valuable asset.  How is this done?  It’s done by profiling your customers.

Internal customer database profiling
Internal customer database profiling involves providing your existing mailing list of “good” customers (that means those you truly want to find more of) for the purposes of analyzing it for patterns.  The process is fairly simple.  Pass your internal database of mailing list records against a database of existing customers, append any and all applicable data variables to your customer mailing list records that match the host database.  In the case of a business to consumer profiling, you might find that your best customers have lower than average income and are on a fixed income because they are 65 or older.  Well, this tells you to focus on that market doesn’t it?  If you’re a business to business type company, you might find that the vast majority of your best customers are those who are in the retail sector of businesses and have a sales volume of less than $1,000,000.

What next?
Given the results of an internal customer profile, you now can search within the same given database for more “like” prospects, i.e., age 65 plus with fixed income, or retail businesses with less that 1 million in sales revenue.  Knowing this can help you with targeting your next mailing list audience, but also can help you version your next mailing list campaign.  What you say to your audience is equally as important as who you say it to.  And if you know who you are talking to, you are vastly more able to communicate the most effective message.

If you need help with profiling your internal customers database, call BB Direct at 866-501-6273.  We’re here to help you take your business marketing to the next level.

The Small Business Association reports that 4 out of 5 businesses go out of business within the first 2 years.  During a recession, the mortality rate of a new business is even greater.  The primary deficiency among smaller, newer businesses is that owners simply lack the experience and planning skills necessary to stay solvent.  For many, the only business management experience they possess is their own within those pain first 2 years.  But marketing lessons can be learned from others mistakes.  If you pay attention to the right competition, you’ll grab market share of those businesses wearing blinders.

Take inventory of the competition within your market
Start by making a list of your competition.  Include all the businesses that provide a product or service to your existing customers and prospects, or those who provide something that would cause your customers or prospects to stop using your product all together.

Examine your competitions position within the market.  Ask yourself, how are they differentiating themselves from you and the others?  Which business(s) dominate the market?  What type of marketing mediums do they use consistently?  What message appears to work better than others?  Ask others what they see and recall?  Document not just the market leaders but those businesses which test various mediums and messages.  Try to remain as objective as possible in your assessment and remember that all the competition face the same challenges in growing their businesses.  It’s safe to assume that if a campaign is short lived, it’s likely not generated enough sales to support itself in the long run.  Over time you’ll be able to learn which marketing campaigns produce a positive ROI and which ones are scrapped.  As dynamic and daunting task as this sounds, it’s far less painful than investing blindly into a bad campaigns that ultimately do not produce.

Divide your competitors into 3 segments
For starters, you may want to consider segmenting your competition into 3 categories.  This will help you know where to focus most of your attention.

Established and Well Branded – These are the businesses which have been around forever, have a loyal following, and strong financial backing.  These businesses have spent a great deal of money and time and growing their business.  Depending on the business you’re in, you may not have the same results in advertisement as they do because their name alone carries more brand recognition and thus drives sales.  What you want to do is pay attention to what they spend their marketing dollars on.  Likely they will not be wasting any of it on the wrong marketing because mature businesses have learned how to market their business years ago.  How does your current marketing compare to theirs?  Are they ever using direct mail to reach their audience?  What about the print space, radio, and television?

Quick Start – These are the businesses which are attracting new customers by doing the right things out of the gate.  They’ve not only got a solid plan to reach their new prospects, they also have a well oiled system to service them.  These are the businesses you want to focus most of your attention on.  If you are under capitalized, focus on parts of their marketing you can afford that will best resonate with your ideal customer.

Under Capitalized – These businesses may be new or old.  They’re in business and float along aimlessly without penetrating any new market share.  They will likely not make it through a recessionary downturn as they’re ill prepared for navigating through hardship.  Because they’re poor planners, they’re also unable to convince the bank to lend them money and will likely leave their vendors holding the bag.  These are also important to watch for two reasons; what not to do, and how you might connect with their few remaining customers before they close their doors.

Separating your competitors in this way will help you see which ones threaten your market share from those which neglect their customers and offer opportunity to grow it.

What have you learned?
One important observation you should make is how the bigger players within your market position themselves amongst the rest.  And those who don’t make an effort to differentiate will likely loose customers randomly to other competitors.  In an ideal market, there would be just as many different kinds of businesses as there are different consumers.  In most markets there are fewer businesses all attempting to satisfy the greatest consumer base.  When the marketing budget can afford it, bigger businesses themselves serve multiple segments to satisfy multiple buyers.

You’ll also find that the smartest businesses using multiple mediums, say television, direct mail, and print space, will attempt to deliver a uniform message along all three channels.  To be efficient, the message is projected in the same geographic market.  This uniformity is important to reinforcing your message.  Careful planning is required to ensure that the investment along all three channels has consistent offers and creative copy.  And that the timing of what they offer works with creating the greatest impact.  Some businesses will attempt to test pricing discounts through a radio commercial and unique feature of product through a newspaper print ad.  The inconsistency is confusing to the consumer and the brand gets lost in the mix to better positioned competitors.

So let’s say you’ve got family and friends all keeping an eye out for you.  They’re clipping the competitions coupons, saving email ads, direct mail, flyers and the like.  They’re also taking notes on telemarketing calls coming in, people stopping by their business or front door, and of oversized bus wraps with giant pictures.  You begin amassing your collection and begin drawing conclusions.  You may see that some “Established and Well Branded” competitors consistently use direct mail and offer lower significant discounted pricing.  You may also find that some of the “Quick Start” competitors are all in the phone book with quarter page adds all boasting high quality products.  And you may also see that several “Under Capitalized” competitors confuse their customers with multiple messages over multiple mediums.

Unless you can truly deliver a discounted cost that will compete with the attention of the “Established and Well Branded”, it’s not wise to place your marketing investment in that area.  Depending on your budget, you many want to mimic some of the “Quick Start” approaches in running a yellow page add of equal size but differentiated positioning.  It’s difficult to get too specific when talking about all industries in general, but the point here is that your competitors can teach you about what to do and more importantly about what not to do.  The longer you watch the competition in this fashion, the more you will learn from them.  And never assume something will work for you just because the competition is doing it.  Everything you do for the first time should be considered a test.  Carefully give it your very best shot and measure the results.  If yellow pages draw $60,000 in new profit per year at a cost of $15,000, it’s likely you will have the same results the next year.  Increasing the size of the ad space doesn’t guarantee a proportional increase in profits.

During a recession, everything changes
Now that you’re established and you’re well on your way to growing your market share, the economy takes a turn for the worse.  You’ve established your position among the other top competitors in your market, but the market as a whole begins to shrink.  This is where you must keep one eye on the competition, and the other on your existing customers.  Again, depending on the industry you’re in and how well you position yourself, holding onto your customers can be a challenge.

Here are some things you should know people behave differently during a down market.

•    Many people change how they value what they buy.
•    People look for value over abundance.
•    People consider time as a factor.
•    People don’t like gimmicks.
•    People are more sober shoppers.
•    People have a better sense of what they want and what they need.
•    People look to escape, even if only for a little while.
•    People relocate.
•    People price compare.
•    People care what others think about their abundance of spending.
•    People read the contracts.
•    People hesitate and take longer to purchase.

Given the above list, you will find many of your competitors making adjustments to their message.  They may change their traditional, long standing marketing medium to cut costs and fine tune offer.  The first marketing they stop is likely one that’s overpriced and not resulting in new business.

Generally speaking, a recession is a terrible time to stop advertising.  Those who do stop signal they are suffering.  These businesses are the ones that will suffer the largest migration of customers.  And this is where you can position yourself to fill the void.

Again, depending on your budget, you want to be sure you’re communicating to your existing customers first.  These consumers are truly your best spent investment.  Guarding them is the key to surviving the economic “storm”.  But if you can afford to reach out to the market for new business, now is the time.  The message must be relevant and strong.  If you’re going to offer a discount, make it one worthy of considering.  If you offer exceptional service, focus on that value as a benefit during this economic day and time.  If your product is more expensive but definitely superior, consider the audience and make sure that audience still values your product as they did before.  If not, consider changing the audience to fit the times.

It’s important to have a healthy life-time value mix of customers.  The larger businesses got to where they are by listening to the market and learning from mistakes.  To use a vegetable garden analogy, your marketing mix should be spend nurturing younger seedlings, harvesting the low hanging fruit, and pulling weeds.  All things being equal, the more balanced the mix, the safer your business will be during a recession.

Over time, as you learn what these bigger, more successful business do right, you’ll also start noticing where the others are making mistakes.  This information is invaluable to the smaller, newer business.  Take notice of those with good fortune and those making mistakes, and invest your precious marketing dollars wisely.

If you’re planning on using direct mail marketing as a way to promote your business or organization, creating your own mailing list is easier than you might expect.  The internet has made creating your own mailing list easier than ever before.  Plus, the ability to target your ideal audience has become increasingly easy.  What was once a chore to understand the database compilation, available selects (filters), and undating schedule is now available online 24/7.  There is simply more information available at your fingertips.

Define your market territory
This process is fairly easy.  The goal here is to maximize your exposure by synchronizing your direct mail campaign with the other advertising mediums such that all are focused on the same market footprint.  You will also want to consider the location and reach of your competition.  If you’re market territory is shared by your competition, it’s important to differentiate your product and service from the competition.  Keep a watchful eye on what your competition is doing and who they are targeting with their advertising.  Many businesses unable to compete with the more aggressive competition settle for a niche segment of the market.  Knowing your place and who you are going after is a part of understanding your market.

Build your criteria set
The criteria set describes your mailing list by either who you include within your mailing list, just as who you omit from your mailing list.  It may be a demographic such as age or income, or a behavioral filter such as interest in cooking or golf.  The goal with building any mailing list is knowing who your ideal audience is.  One of the easiest ways to pinpoint your ideal audience is to target people who look just like your current customers.  Take a closer look at the people who buy from you.  And try to understand who within those who buy from you are your best and worst customers.  Many customers have found your business from your previous advertising (or lack of it).  It is safe to say that if you continue advertising the same way, all things being equal, you will get more of the same kinds of customers.  So before just doing the same thing, consider reaching out to your best customers.  These may be include your frequent shoppers, your biggest spenders, and those that you enjoy most to market to.

Building your mailing list online is fairly simple.  But take your time to understand the selects (filters) you are using to build your list.  Understanding the different between “exact” and “inferred” will help you better identify your ideal audience and therefore, increase your chances for success.

BB Direct’s online mailing list website can be found at www.bbdirectleads.com.  This tool requires you to simply register yourself before you begin.  There is no charge for using this site until you place your order.  And the site is supported by both an online video tutorial library as well as phone support by experienced consultants.

To learn more about mailing lists, visit www.bbdirect.com or call us at (866) 501-6273.

Mail better, not less

Fear of economic turmoil can kill the momentum of any growing business.  The mental distraction alone can be paralyzing to upper management decision making.  Many find themselves tossed between cutting marketing budgets, anticipating the worse is yet to come, and staring at the competition that’s muddling in the same insecurity.

The fact is that businesses must evaluate their previously set goals, and adjust their marketing strategies to meet or exceed these goals.  Those businesses which put their head in the sand and wait out the cyclical nature of the economy will likely miss the opportunity to dramatically increase market share.  Integrated direct mail advertising should be used not only to guard “higher-value” customers, but to also win new customers from less aggressive competitors.

It’s been shown time and time again that businesses that maintain or exceed their market budget not only increase their profitability, they also create the opportunity to absorb a portion of their competitions customer base.  The direct mail industry is long sought as the recession proof business.  Many businesses utilize the obvious benefits of such a targeted medium in both bull and bear markets.  They do it because of its predictable nature and its pinpoint targeting accuracy.

In short
When businesses stop advertising, their brand awareness diminishes rapidly.  The appeal they’ve once enjoyed is difficult to reignite as the market rebounds.  Meanwhile, those businesses which make a decision to advertise in the face of adversity capture the hope of new customers.

Our goal
BB Direct works with clients in helping them with all the possibilities (and limitations) of direct mail data acquisition.  We can help you evaluate your previous campaigns, help make smart adjustments for future campaigns, and think through the data strategies that are many times the difference between red and black.

Below are our recommendations for increasing profitability and market share.  We hope these points are helpful to your business, no matter which industry you are in.

Re-evaluate your business marketing proposition
It’s important to understand that potential customers (both consumers and businesses) respond differently during recessionary times.  They become more discriminating in their purchase decisions and more responsive to a different type of message.  Advertisers should not assume that the same audience will respond the same to the same message and communication.
This is an important point to remember in that during a recession, new customers may come from difference places than before, prospects that were once non-responsive may become responsive, and customers loyal to your competition may take more notice to your business with the right message and communication.  This is where we want to focus.

To start, let’s look at a few basic questions about your current marketing:

Question 1:  Is your current message congruent across all mediums?
When evaluating the choices for communicating to your audience, be sure to say the same across all mediums.  It’s proven to be more effective to reinforce the same message over and over again, than is it to list different reasons or benefits.  Consider your competition and how they position themselves.  What is their selling point and how do they compare?  If one of the many reasons for buying from you is also your competitions, the prospect must choose who has connected better.  It is likely that your competition that stays focused and on point repeatedly will likely gain the business from you, or visa versa.

Question 2:  Is your current value proposition promoting product or service value?
Stay away from boasting you are the lowest priced provider.   Lowest priced leaders are often times viewed as always being lesser value.  While you must consider pricing your products and services competitively, businesses that focus on price as their primary selling point mislead their customers into believing that your lower price replaces the product and customer service value.  Instead, you want to appeal to the value your clients receive in dealing with your company.

Question 3:  Are you appealing to the emotions of your potential customer?
If so, change your focus on product or service value, not emotion.  Most everyone during an economic recession is experiencing some level of frustration or downright financial hardship.  The process of accepting this new lifestyle is sobering to the most spirited individuals.  Now is not the time to play on the soft spot of your audience.  Stay on course with the product value proposition and make a strong call to action.  Make your message clear and concise.

Don’t bury your head in the sand
Too often, business leaders become paralyzed with the “shock and awe” of how fast their reserve dissipates during a market down turn.  Next quarter projects are down with no plan to reverse the trend.  Sometimes, big change is necessary for navigating your business through rough times.  Sometimes it requires laying-off employees, dropping products lines, cutting back on a variety of perks, and firing unprofitable customers.

One school of thought is to treat your business like an asset.  Here the businesses marketing expense is a function of revenue from the previous year.  If business is down, the marketing budgets are cut.  In doing so, sales revenue usually continues to drop but hopefully, profit will be recouped when the market turns.
The other school of thought is to act.  Business leaders look at the total market potential for their product or service.  They take note of the competition that’s cutting back in certain customer segments and why.  They set goals to absorb these vulnerable customers to boost profit and market share.

School of thought
Your business as an asset
One school of thought is to treat your business as an asset by cutting expenses to increase profits.  Running a business as an expense during a recession is not recommended.  You will likely lose valuable customers to more aggressive competition and have a difficult time gaining them back in the years to come.

Your business as a vehicle
The other school of thought is to treat your business as a vehicle.  This means looking for opportunities and allotting the appropriate expense needed to exploit these new opportunities.  During a recession, you should be looking for opportunities to invest in, gain market share, and increase profits in both the short and the long term.

This second school of thought considers not what marketing dollars are allotted based on the previous year’s profits but in accordance with the need for reaching those new customers.  Scrap segments of your business that are less profitable and redirect your dollars toward fostering these new business relationships.
The first approach works in a growing economy because the assumption is that doing the same begets the same.  During a recession, this logic does not work.  Doing the same begets different.  Buyers purchase less of one product and more of others, they are more discriminating, and their loyalty dissipates.  They make purchases based on a whole new set of conditions and respond differently to the same offer.  This is why the second approach is imperative to keeping the customers you have while at the same time finding new ones.

Strategy – Value proposition across all mediums
To put it simply, avoid gimmicks or emotional appeals in all your advertising mediums.  During a recession and in the midst of all the advertisement “clutter”, businesses should focus on relationships between customers and brand to keep and win business.  It’s far more appealing to communicate the benefits and advantages of your product or service.  With direct mail, use hard hitting copy with simple but convincing language, offers that are hard to pass up, and a strong call to action.  Focus messages of benefits and ROI.  Prospects are looking for as much value as possible in a weak economy and direct mail is an excellent medium to deliver that message.

Strategy – Adjust the recipe but keep cooking
There are several logical reasons for not cutting your advertising budget during a recession but the primary reason is that recouping lost customers after loosing them is more expensive than protecting them.  This holds true when the economy is doing well, but especially when in a down market.  Losing customers to competitors during a recession is a difficult trend to reverse.

The focus should be placed on reaching marketing and communication goals over keeping within budget.  Your budget should be set based on what you are attempting to accomplish, albeit fostering a richer brand/customer relationship, or hunting for prospects that might be lured away from your less aggressive competitors.  The key is to understanding how your previous customers and prospects will change their view during hard times.  Who do you currently serve?  Will those you currently serve change the way they buy?  If so, are there others markets that present themselves?  Direct mail is an important medium to surveying and identifying your current customers, but also in establishing the optimum message.  It’s measurable and predictable, and easily replicated.  It’s quick to answer tough questions. With direct mail, you can fail fast and evolve.

Strategy – Renegotiate media vendor agreements
Some of the best media rates occur in an economic slowdown.  The best strategy may not be to negotiate the lowest possible rates but rather to encourage a cooperative relationship with the media.  Share information on your budget because when the media is creating special offers you are more likely to receive valuable deals.
Pricing should be not on the lowest cost today, but fair cost for the long term.  Prices will increase eventually, and when the time comes, you’ll be enjoying lower rates and a stronger relationship with the media you rely on to deliver your advertising messages.

Strategy – Target low hanging fruit
The low hanging fruit are those prospects that are already buying your product or service, just not from you.  Monitor your competitors and look for opportunities.  Find those cutting back and focusing on that segment of the market to boost market share.

Focus on your metrics. Know which target segments are most responsive, which offers generate the greatest interest, and so on. Spend every ad dollar carefully.  Re-examine your marketing mix to ensure it is the most cost effective.  Be sure you balance your marketing on customer retention and new client acquisition.  It’s more expensive to rebuild your market share than it is to maintain it.

During a recession, priority to goods and services change depending on what goods and services you are offering.  Consumers once loyal to brand begin to question what goods and services they buy rather than from whom.

A recession can help you strengthen the position of your business in your marketplace.  In fact, it may well be the perfect time for increasing your investment in advertising, taking market share from your competitors, and even introducing new products and services.  If you can afford to be aggressive, you’ll find there may be no better time than during a recession to take market share away from competitors who are in a weakened position.

Strategy – Set realistic goals
Lower than average return on marketing investment should be anticipated in many markets.  Advertising should not be regarded as a drain on profits but as a means to achieving objectives.  An adjustment to expectations is necessary before executing any campaign initiatives.  Whether you are introducing new products or services or campaigning to embolden relationships you currently have with profitable customers, your goal should be to set tangible markers for success.

Strategy – Long Term Planning
Maintaining or increasing your advertising may not hurt your bottom line short term and increases your profitability long term.
• A recession provides a prime opportunity for increasing your market share, so monitor your market share, not just your sales volume.
• Balance ad spending between long-term consumer motivation and promotion for short-term sales boosts.
• Implement a media relations strategy that will strengthen your relationship with key media and provide long-term financial benefits.
• Don’t hesitate to introduce well-conceived and properly marketed new products when your competition is weakened.

Before you invest in your direct mail campaign, talk to one of our helpful consultants here at BB Direct.

Disclaimer
This strategy blog post is for those businesses which will endure beyond the natural economic change we are currently facing.  There are many businesses that will not, or cannot bring about the changes necessary to ride through a recessionary period.  I make this point because for many businesses, a minor loss in sales revenue is too great to overcome and they are already on the brink of collapse.  For these businesses, severe changes must be made in order to maintain a going concern.  This strategy blog post is not a prescription to remedy failing businesses, rather a supplemental to those direct marketers who are able to make positive changes to their marketing plans and can afford to test a variety of campaign opportunities.

As I’ve been asking around about the future holds for direct mail service providers and have been getting the general consensus that business is good.  This week a slump in retail sales and the USPS considering shorting their delivery days to 5 per week, it’s no wonder many are concerned.  But in conversations I’ve had this week, I mostly hear about the ice, snow, and blistering cold.  I do hear that acquisition mail (those campaigns to cold prospects) are down, but listening to the voice of mail service providers throughout the country, business is maintaining and businesses are continuing their direct mail campaigns.

I’ve been also polling the data providers.  With this group I’ve been hearing a mixed bag of response.  For some, those who in the past have focused on one industry vertical, business is flat.  They are reaching for numbers and working on developing new vertical markets to penetrate.  For those mail service providers who’ve not put their eggs all in one basket, business is stead and growing.

The direct mail marketing industry is considered a “recession-proof” industry.  When the economy is good, businesses use direct mail, when the economy is faulting, smart businesses spend more on advertising.  But there is a threshold where the economy can be so bad that all businesses suffer, including those involved providing direct mail marketing services.

Currently, I would argue that we are not nearly close to an economic downturn that forces businesses to stop advertising.  But I would say that the conditions are different in that our financial lending system is broken and because of it, businesses which borrow money to make payroll must draw money from other area’s such as advertising.

As of today, President Obama’s newest stimulus package is being weighed.  The BBC reports conflicting views on nationalizing our banking system.  Large bank CEO’s are seen as taking bonus’s while the rest of us suffer.  Issues in the Middle East continue to grow more and more complex.  And Steeler Nation has temporarily distracted us from all of it.

I believe we have tremendous opportunity in this county to “rebrand” America, truly develop renuable energy that will create new jobs, and prospect is high in bringing our service men and women back home.  For this and so many other reasons, I remain optimistic.

Dun & Bradstreet, better known as D&B, is the premier business database compiler of choice for BB Direct.  Though there are several business to business database compilers, D&B uses strict guidelines for which business enterprise is ultimately added to the database.  This is important to remember when you are considering a direct mail marketing campaign to businesses.  So many businesses today come and go before they become profitable.  So many others are really just, “Doing Business As”, businesses of another company.  And still, so many businesses relocate and become difficult to track the age and size of the business enterprise.

One of the unique characteristics of the Dun and Bradstreet business database is that every business record has been assigned a Dun’s number.  This is kind of like a persons social security number for a business.  If your business has not yet been assigned a Dun’s number, your business has not yet been added to the database.  The Dun’s number allows for better accountability with relocation of businesses.

Linkage
The D&B database does a great job with linking businesses with other businesses.  If your business is owned by another, this would constitute a link.  The top business is considered the Ultimate company within the organization.

Like most business to business databases, you’ll find similiar selectability to include the size of business in terms of both estimated sales revenue and number of employee’s, contact names with titles, numbre of years in business, ethnic origin of the owner, both the primary and secondary Standard Index Code to identify the type of business catagory, etc.  BB Direct is proud to offer Dun & Bradstreet as our first choice database for compiled business to business data.  The reliability and consistency for accuracy is second to none.  We recommend D&B for most of the requests we receive from our clients.

If you would like to learn more about the D&B Database, it’s compilation methodology, and direct mail application stategies using business to business mailing lists, visit us at BB Direct or call us toll-free at (866) 501-6273.  You can also order this mailing list data directly from our online count & order system by visiting BB Direct Leads.com.

So what’s all the fuss about the New Move Update with the United States Post Office?  Well, BB Direct offers a simple explaination to help clear matters up.

Since November 23rd, 2008, the Postal Service have revised the Move Update standards in an effort to reduce the mail that ends up forwarded or returns when the mailing address provided had previously been changed.  The gist of the staying compliant is that you now must be sure to update your mailing address within 95 days of your mailing.  This includes all Standard Mail (letters, flats, parcels and Not Flat-Machinables), as well as automated-rate and presort-rate First-Class Mail.

The autorized methods for Updating your mail to stay compliant are:

~  NCOA Link processing
~  FASTforward MLOCR processing (letter mail only)
~  OneCode ACS (Address Change Service) in conjunction with an intelligent Mail barcode and a mailer ID.
~  Address Change Service used with an ACS participant code and an appropriate on-piece ancillary service endorsement.
~  Use of an appropriate on-piece ancillary service endorsement without ACS.

BB Direct offers the NCOA Link processing to correct changed records and keep your mailing list compliant.  For more information on our data hygiene services, visit us here.

The 18 month NCOA Link processing provides National Change of Address processing for the last 18 months.  This process will not correct those people who have relocated from 18 to 48 months ago.  This processing was designed to satisfy the most common file updating.  The processing is perfect for files that have already been NCOA’d within the last 18 months, or if the database you’re going to mail has been purchase within the last year and you are planning to mail again.

USPS New Move Compliance
To satisfy the United States Post Office requirements when mailing Standard Rate, you will need to be sure that all files used are new move compliant.  The requirement is that your mailing list has been NCOA’d within 95 days of mailing.

B-Clean Lite data hygiene
The B-Clean Lite process is offered by BB Direct and provides a combination of both the 18 month NCOA and ANK Link Processing.  The ANK Link Processing flags those records where a move had occurred but did so between 18 and 48 months ago.  It also provides the date of the move but does not correct the address itself.  The B-Clean Lite product from BB Direct is perfect for all files in that it is a cost effective way to correct those recent moves and flag those older moves at a low cost.  You can then decide what to do with the older flagged addresses, i.e., delete them, add “Or current resident” to the address, or gather these records together and process with the 48 Month NCOA Link processing. BB Direct also offers an unlimited access FTP site folder for the B-Clean Lite folder.  This folder is password protected and available 24/7 to make NCOA correction available any hour of the day.  The system is cost effective and simple to use.

If you would like to learn more about BB Direct’s data hygiene product line click here, or visit our website or other fine mailing list products.

When working with your mailing list broker to build your target mailing list criteria there are a number of key points to keep in mind.  Below are a number of simple but important points to do to remember that may make the difference between generating buyers, not leads.  A few simple adjustments can improve your direct mail targeting, response results, and your bottom line. I urge you to consider these 6 absolutes before purchasing any mailing list.

1.  One per household vs. one per address

Traditionally, counts and orders have included duplicate records for the same mailing address.  Your mailing list will most likely default to “One Per Household.”  This means that for every home where there are at least two roommates sharing the same mailing address, but not the same last name, or where there is a married couple not sharing the same name, there will be two records made available to you.  Thus, two mail pieces will be delivered to that same mail box.  This may or may not be appropriate for your campaign.  A cellular phone coupon offer that might include a new phone with a 24 month activation and service commitment would be ideal for multiple mail pieces arriving in the same mail box the same day for different people.  However, an offer announcing the grand opening of a new summer camp for your child would not.
To correct this default, be sure you request your original count and order to “One Per Address”, instead of “One Per Household.”  This will likely reduce your total mail file by up to 10 percent and significantly increase your return on investment.

2.  Consider capping your filter ranges for a tighter, more accurate target audience

For many campaigns, the mailing list criteria set may include demographic filters such as age and income.  For example, your target audience could be all households with an estimated household income range of $40,000 +, or an age range of age 45 +.  Depending on your offer, those highest income and age ranges might not be any better than those ranges below your starting point.  Ask yourself if your ideal customer is one with an income greater than $125,000 income or one with an age of 75 or 85 years or higher.  If not, then stop your age and income at the top range and eliminate unwanted mail waste.  Remember, the goal is not to mail more but to mail more accurately.  Reducing any “non-responders” will only improve your response rate and overall bottom line return on investment.

Other selects to consider are Home Value/Assessed Value, Length of Residence, Home Year Built, Mortgage Loan Amount, etc.  You may also want to consider mailing more than one mail piece version to various ranges that reach a type of potential buyer.
Likewise, you could version your mail piece creative and offer to gain lift in response.  As an example, rather than eliminating the senior population from your campaign, mail a different version of your mail piece that’s more appealing to this older age bracket.  This mail versioning is also helpful when focusing on more affluent households.  Some offers including discounted services designed for the budget conscience, while those more affluent households are generally looking for quality over price.

3.  Properly set response and deliverability expectations

It is important to understand that no mailing list is perfect.  Therefore you should expect that there will be some degree of inaccurate mailing list records and undeliverable mail.  If you’re a direct mail service provider and you’re working with a new mailer, always run through possible deliverability rates for certain types of mailing lists with your client.  Be sure you explain the potential for error on accuracy.  If you’re a new mailer yourself, talk with your mail service provider or mailing list broker about these expectations so that you’re comfortable with the reality of mail piece returns.  This will save you or your client a great deal of headache before it’s too late.

You should also have a clear understanding of realistic response rates and/or return on investment.  If you or your client has never used direct mail as a way to bring in new business, talk to your mail service provider or mailing list broker before you invest in this advertising medium.  Go through the process of determining your return on investment break-even point so that you can truly understand the risks involved and the realistic response you should expect.  Compare this potential return on investment risk with the other advertisement mediums you’re currently investing in or considering.  Likewise, measure the performance of any advertising investment so that you can learn where your investment dollars are best spent.

4.  Closely match your acquisition list with your current best customers

There are those “ideal” customers who purchase on site, pay on time, and return for more.  There are others who are loyal to your competitors and indifferent to your offer regardless of the price, value, or competitive edge.  How do these two groups of people differ?  Can you describe the “ideal” audience in terms of a mailing list in hopes of finding more just like them?  Does your current “targeted mailing list” identify the first group over the second?  Doing so is crucial to successful response rates.  Consider investing in some mailing list analytics to allow a statistician determine these minute differences that may mean big differences in return.

With an acquisition mailing, the better you’ve thought through what your current best customers “look like”, the more apt you are to finding more.  It’s always far more cost effective to pay a little more in the way of additional mailing list filters, than to mail to a larger, less responsive audience.

5.  Mailing List Update Schedule

When is your direct mail drop?  Is it shortly after the next mailing list update?  If it can wait, order the list extraction to take place after this date to ensure your highest deliverability.  Depending on the database you’re renting, the list may be passed against the NCOA every 60 to 90 days, or for some managed properties, only once a year.  Knowing the schedule of this process, and the frequency will tell you what you should expect in terms of deliverability.  If the file hasn’t been NCOA’d in the last 60 days, you may want to consider paying to have the process completed with your acquisition file.  Should your plan include mailing both your internal database and an acquisition list, it never hurts to NCOA update both files.  Talk to your list broker about the update of the list you’re about to order, as well as what goes into this process.  Ask for details on combining an NCOA and DSF2 pass on the data before you mail, chances are high you will benefit from this hygiene process.

6.  Consider reviewing the usage report on any managed files

Most every managed database has been tested by other mailers.  When selecting from a variety of potential files, ask to review the “usage report” before making your selection.  You may find that some of the files have been tested by similar “competitive” mailers but have not mailed to this file again.  “Continuation” means that the company performing the mail campaign was satisfied with the test mailing and decided to mail again to the same file.  No “continuation” means that the test was likely unsatisfactory.

Keep in mind that newer files may have little or no usage.  “Little or no usage” isn’t an indication of how well the database will perform for your campaign.  It may simply mean that few have tested the database.  It could also indicate that the manager hasn’t recorded the usage yet and therefore is unable to report.  It is not likely that you will find a usage report for mailing lists that are not managed properties.

To learn more about how to maximize your direct mail return on investment, visit http://www.bbdirect.com or call us at (866) 501-6273.

When embarking on your first direct mail campaign, it’s imperative that you think through all facets of the campaign.  From creative, to offer, to keeping your message congruent with the other advertising mediums.  Below are some of the more important points to remember when creating a mailing list.  Do it right the first time may mean the difference between a positive ROI or never testing direct mail again.

Here are seven very important points to remember:

1.  Know your customer
The absolute best way to understand your best prospects is to understand your current best customers.  You as a business owner can describe in detail what your customer looks like based on his or her attributes and need for your product or service.  But the key here is to be able to describe your customer in terms that are relevant to a mailing list broker.  If a mailing list broker is unable to build a criteria set that describes your best customer, then no matter how well you’ll be able to describe this person, you won’t be able to find more just like it.  As an example, let’s say you’re in the business of selling high-end office furniture.  You may describe your best customer as one who desires to have the most cutting edge modern attractive desk-system on the market.  Your customer may buy your office furniture products because they want to impress their clientele.  Your office furniture is a direct reflection of what your customers want their clientele to think of them…modern, classy, cutting edge.  Though this is a very clear description of what why your clients might buy your products over the competitor, the description is better suited for the direct mail marketers’ creative team that will assemble a congruent message and offer to your direct mail prospects.  A better description would sound something more that this.  “My customers are businesses such as law offices, CPA’s, Real Estate investment trusts, and a personal banker whose business employee’s greater than 50 employees’.  These customers businesses that are both new and established, but the decision maker is usually the owner located at the headquarter location.”  Notice the identifiers that describe this business clientele are consistent with the filters available from a business mailing lists database.

2.  Provide your mailing list broker with an accurate description of your product or offer.
The broker may have suggestions as to the type of list that would best suite your needs.  Most mailing list brokers can offer suggestions based on the available selects of the databases they typically use.  If you’re unsure of the filters (selects) available on a particular database, your mailing list broker should be able to offer you a data card that describes in detail these selects as well as the pricing for these selects.  In summary, a well informed list broker has a greater chance of helping his direct mail marketer.

3.  Know the difference is a response and a compiled mailing list.
-Response mailing lists are comprised of individuals who have responded to an offer either through the mail, phone, and television or through other means of mass communication.
-Compiled mailing lists are a compilation of information from public records and sources such as the phone book, courthouse records, bankruptcy filings, mortgage deed records and more.
The more you understand the differences with the various available mailing lists, the better you’ll be able to use them to your advantage.  The primary reason for understanding the difference between these two mailing lists is because the compiled mailing list will naturally contain more records per a given geography.  Should your market territory be finite, the available compiled mailing list data will be larger in number than the response file type mailing lists.  Likewise, if your market territory has no boundaries, your ideal mailing list is one in which those individuals have already responded favorably to an interest or offer such as yours.  Though the mailing list data usually costs more, response files are typically considered more responsive.

4.  Database analysis
The more you know about your internal mailing list of customers, the better you’ll be able to communicate to them.  A database analysis is a process where by you provide your customer names and addresses be evaluated.  The process is completely automated and relatively secure.  What is done is your internal customer mailing list is passed against a large universe mailing list.  This universe mailing list contains all the deliverable addresses within the U.S.  This mailing list database contains not only the name and the address, but also any demographic and psychographic information available on the records.  Wherever there is a match of the two mailing list databases, all the relative elements of information is temporary appended to your database.  The processor then looks for patterns within the appended data for what kinds of mailing list conclusions can be made.  This profile “snap-shot” is then compared with the “profile” of the resident consumers within the same market territory of your mailing list.  Ultimately, we are looking for a comparison of what your customers “look like” relative to the people in the same relative area that are not your customers.  We are also looking for how your customers “look differently” from the surrounding population.  The more we can tell about your customers the better.  Ultimately, we want to find other people within the area that are not customers but look identical to them.  The theory is that if we were to mail to those people who look most similar to your existing customers, the better changes are that they will become customers themselves.

5.  Mail piece versioning
Understand your customers’ needs and desires and speak to them in a manner that is specific or special them.  Not all people are the same.  Imagine walking to your own mail box tomorrow afternoon.  You reach in and find a postcard inviting you to a new restaurant in your area.  We’ve all received these types of postcards with some that appeal to us more than others.  What would this post include that would truly grab your attention?  The answer to this question is most likely different for you than it is for your neighbor.  For a young family, the piece might include a picture of a happy family enjoying a dinner out together.  The copy highlights the importance of getting the family out together and how this new restaurant caters to family dinning.  For a middle aged successful single female professional, the same mail piece may be a turn-off and would be quickly tossed in the trash.  But should the postcard include a photo of a group of other like aged singles enjoying dinner together with an emphasis on entrée’s that peak the interest of the most sophisticated palate, this mail piece might entice the single female to the very same restaurant as the young family.
With today’s variable print technology, each mail piece can be different in accordance to the recipient of the piece itself.  The customization can be as different as the graphic designer is willing to make it.  And generally speaking, the more your mail piece is versioned to the targeted audience, the better your direct mail response will be.  The ideal mailing list for such variable print mailings a “segmentation” type mailing list.  Segmentation mailing lists classify people into naturally occurring subsets of the population.  A restaurant’s market territory might include a 10 mile radius and within this territory, there might be 12 primary segments of the population.  Mailing the same general mail piece and offer to all 12 segments is less effective than mailing 12 versions of the same mail piece.

6.  Testimonials
A growing business can never have too many raving fans and a mail piece can always benefit with testimonials.  At the risk of cluttering a direct mail piece, relevant testimonials help a business establish trust, especially if the one providing the testimonial is a well known celebrity or a well branded business.

7.  Response measurement
It cannot be stressed enough to design a response measurement mechanism in your direct mail campaign.  Without measuring how many responders or orders have been achieved as a direct result from your direct mail investment, you will never know how effective this investment is as it compares to other advertisement mediums.  Direct mail measurement can be measured several different ways, i.e., responders, buyers, foot-traffic into the store location, actual gross revenue directly attributed to the campaign, gross profit directly attributed to the campaign, and the potential lifetime value of the responders/buyers/donors of a campaign.  Whatever the method of measurement, quantifying your response will help both in justifying a second test campaign to ultimately investing more or less into direct mail marketing.

To learn more about how to maximize your direct mail return on investment, visit http://www.bbdirect.com or call us at (866) 501-6273.