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.

According to the USPS, 72% of Hispanics receive almost all of their direct mail in English. But 36% would prefer to receive their direct mail in Spanish. These percentages are pretty telling when you think of how much direct mail campaign costs are wasted. The direct mail marketer can now expect to increase their response rates by utilizing mailing list data designed to separate ethnic surname from language spoken in the household. Combining a better, more sophisticated, mailing list with proper direct mail piece copy will enhance the mail moment and attract more attention from its recipient, thus producing more and better sales leads.

The Mailing List

But not all mailing lists targeting ethnicity are the same. Some mailing list sources attempt to predict the ethnicity of a home or its primary language solely on the spelling of the last name. Today’s technology allows you to build a mailing list that’s multi-dimensional in creation. In addition to using the spelling the last name when compiling an ethnic mailing list, with over 75,000 first names common to more than one ethnicity and another 75,000 first names unique to a given ethnicity, both first and last names can be used in building an ethnic mailing list.

Ethnic groups can then be created for proper ethnic identification. Creating these ethnic groups goes a long way to targeting and versioning your direct mail message for greater impact response.

Ethnic Group Creation

Some ethnic groups are more easily identifiable than others, but simple techniques help cure the ethnic group identification process. For instance, many approaches offer Asian categories such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.  But how can these offerings assure you that names that properly belong in other ethnic groups are not mixed in with the major groups they do offer?  An example of this might well be Myanmar (Burmese) mixed in with Chinese.  Names such as Ma Ne Tun, Ba Thaung, or Maung Khaing are Burmese names, not Chinese.  They do not speak or think in Chinese, and are probably not receptive to offerings geared specifically to Chinese people.  For names that are common to 2 or more ethnic groups the method we use is to look at the middle names to be used as a tie breaker.  An example of this would be Peter Yu, he could be either Korean or Chinese and there the middle name comes into play.  Peter Mei Yu would be coded as Chinese and Peter Hak Yu as Korean.  John Smith could be English or African American depending on geographic location but John Big Eagle Smith, from his middle name would be coded as Native American regardless of his geographic location.  Middle names are also used to define different religions within a group, for example Sikh or Hindu.  Other examples include “Russian”, where competitive approaches seem to have lumped all “Soviets” together under that term, “Yugoslavian”, where one might well find Croats Serbs, Slovenes, and a number of other ethnicities, “Czechoslovakian” where Czechs, Slovaks, and a smattering of Magyar, Polish, Estonian, and other groups might be found, and most specifically, “African American”, a specialty deserving its own explanation as an advantage. By incorporating name research and geographic locators we can determine Hispanic Country of Origin from twenty-one countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela. This incorporation of both name research and geographic locators go along way to helping create an accurate ethnic mailing list.

The Direct Mail Piece and Message

The direct mail marketer should consider a number of inclusions to their direct mail piece that will help in the development of your internal customer/prospect mailing list.

*  Bi-lingual language is very important for the first direct mail piece to your acquisition mailing list. Though you are using the best known ethnic mailing list available that’s targeting by ethnic back-ground, you’ll not want to assume that all direct mail recipients can speak and read their native tongue. By providing both English and their native language, say Spanish, the direct mail recipient will not only appreciate the effort made to respectfully communicate to them, but you’re also assured you’re not missing out of those who wouldn’t understand your offer.

* This first direct mail piece should of course have a response vehicle with in it. The response vehicle could be a phone number to return call to set an appointment, or maybe a Business Reply by Mail. If you’ve left a phone, be sure the direct mail responder has two options on the phone that are measurable. At the very least, two phone numbers; one for English, and one in their native tongue. This again respectfully accommodates their potential need and allows you to track the language preference.

*       Going forward, you should have developed an internal prospect/customer mailing list with essentially to clusters within it. One of the clusters within your mailing list would be those who’s preference is, say, Spanish, and the other would be those preference is English. All future correspondence with this prospect/customer should be in the language of their choice.

As your internal customer mailing list becomes sizable enough, you should consider splintering your entire direct mail marketing efforts to version not only the language on your direct mail campaigns, but also any special interests of this audience. Your direct mail newsletter might not only be provided in two language versions, but the native language one should also include subject matter that’s conducive to the interest of that ethnicity.

It’s important to ask what your various ethnic clusters might want to see from you as a business. At each direct mail communication thread, be sure to include questions that will heighten your awareness of the ethnic cluster and compare the responses with those of the English cluster. Look for responses that differ most between the two languages and work to develop changes within your organization that better address the needs of different people. You may not see much difference between these two cluster groupings but it’s important to continually ask questions of everyone on your internal customer mailing list to stay abreast of your customers ever changing needs.

* 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.

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.