Data enhancement is gaining ground as a popular product add-on to letter shops, direct mail printers, direct agencies, mailing list brokers, and specialized marketing firms working with businesses who serve direct mail advertisers.  Data enhancement involves appending elemental data (demographic, behavioral, or firmographic) to an existing database of names and addresses.  This existing database of names and addresses is typically an internal customer file provided by the business seeking further segmentation analysis.  Ideally, after database enhancement, the file can be divided into segments for more targeted mailing.

Data Enhancement Example

Let’s consider a popular multi-location bank.  The existing customer database includes infor...

A must read for small businesses aiming to improve their direct mail effectiveness

Whether your marketing plan has included direct mail marketing in the past and you want to make improvements, or it’s your first time and want to cover all the bases before you begin, this document will help you take notice to the most important elements of a successful direct mail campaign.

Low Ticket / High Ticket Items
Direct mail is not for every business.  Simple math will tell you if you’re product or service will provide a positive return on investment through the use of direct mail.  In general terms, higher ticket items have a greater likelihood of turning a profit, and lower ticket items are less...

Want to excel your business growth in today’s competitive mailing list brokerage business?  Take heart to 5 key strategies which all list brokerage firms can benefit from.

1. Identify and stick to your core products and services
Your service bundle should include only those mailing list products and services which you have experience with and can competitively position.  Resist trying to be all things to all people.  Instead, stick to offering your core products and services, and know them extremely well.  Likewise, identify the vertical market(s) you have the most experience with and work to penetrate this group.  You’ll gain more growth traction in repeating success over and over that attempting to master all.  Too often, list brokers take ...

Nationwide, newspapers continue to better understand their subscriber customers, how they compare with their non-subscribers, and why they continue to renew their subscription year after year.  What was once a major investment in time and money, data mining of the subscription list has become more affordable and a more easily adapted process.

Data Mining
Database mining is a process of sorting through and looking for patterns within a given database.  It sometimes involves just looking at the names and addresses and drawing conclusions on where people live in relation to a given geographic store location.  More often it involves enhancing a database of with demographic, psychographic, or firmographic (in the case of a list of businesses) data...

When considering a mailing list provider, you should consider many aspects of their ability.  Before your next direct mail campaign, consider reviewing a number of these important points while interviewing your potential mailing list broker.
First of all, consider your naivety in this process.  Have you prepared for a direct mail marketing campaign and carried it through from start to finish with success?  What kinds of experience can you yourself draw from?  Are there others you know that might could offer advise or insight to your mailing list provider selection process?

Consider the following helpful tips to increase the likelihood you’ll find the right data for your campaign needs.

1. When it comes to providers, generally speaking, a mailing list b...

1. Usage reports

When renting a mailing list that’s a managed property, you can request a usage report before ordering. The usage report is a list of direct mail marketers who’ve tested the mailing list you’re considering. The usage report will also list those direct mail marketers who’ve not only tested the mailing list but have come back and ordered the mailing list again because the initial test direct mail campaign performed well.

By reviewing the usage report a new direct mail marketer can get a glance of other direct mail marketers who’ve either had success or failure. Those direct mail marketers who you recognize to be similar in product/service and offering, and who’ve had continuation on the mailing list, could be signaling that you...

1. Consider timing of your campaign
Your direct mail piece competes with the other mail pieces in the mailbox that day as well as the attention span of who you mailed the direct mail piece to.  In the summer months, the kids are out of school and families are busy with summer activities.  The weeks around December are filled with holiday activities that occupy a direct mail recipients attention that directly competes with the consideration of your mail piece.

2.  Consider the competition
How is your competition positioning themselves to the very audience you’re attempting to win business with?  What’s their offer, and is it similar to your offer?  Consider for a moment what the direct mail recipient considers when they receive your direct mail piece and...

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...

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 spe...

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...