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 information such as name and address, average checking account balance and if they have an auto loan with the bank.  Other transactional information included within the banks database might include if they have a mortgage, credit card, and revolving equity line of credit.

The bank could schedule mailings to all it’s customers that include a “menu” of financial services in hopes of earning more business from it’s existing customers.  Or better yet, the bank could consider database enhancement, segment those customers based on age, income, household composition, child age, etc.  Doing so would allow them to mail more specific offers to the same customers.  If we knew that 40% of their database included lower income renters, there would be a different set of financial services to be offered than homeowners with the same or higher income level.  In this example, the bank would offer the appropriate financial services to only those customers which might response, thus mailing less, cutting direct mail cost, and increasing their DM ROI.

Experts agree that direct mail is best used to provide information and offers to existing customers.  But after performing a number of test mailings to the various internal customer segments created from a simple database enhancement, the bank will learn which segments might be ideal for finding new customers by segmenting the non-customer population within their market footprint.

The Database Enhancement Process

The database enhancement process has come along way over the last 10 years as the digital age continues to make advances.  All that is really needed is a list of names and addresses in a digital format.  The internal database is bumped up against a larger database that contains all the names and addresses (and data elements for enhancement).  Where there is a match on the names and addresses, the elemental data is then copied to the internal customer database.  This enhanced database is then sorted by the various elements such that patterns can be drawn, and target mailing decisions can be made.

Offering this process to your mailer customers is both profitable and builds loyalty.  Mail customers who benefit from such as process in the way of increase response will surely increase your odds of keeping that customer for future mailing.

If you would like to learn more about how to incorporate database enhancement to your service line, visit BB Direct online or call us at (866) 501-6273.

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 likely.  Determining if your business will benefit comes down to setting realistic expectations on response results and how much profit per customer you can expect.

Low Ticket Example – Books
Let’s start with an example of two businesses, one is an author attempting to sell his newly written book, and the other is a bookstore attempting to sell discount loyalty cards.  The author sells his book for $24.00 and since he’s selling it himself, he keeps all the profit, save the cost to print the book at a cost of $10.00 each.  Let’s take the average cost for a quality direct mail piece (including printing, mailing list, mailing service, and postage) of $1.43/pp x 5,000 = $7,150.  Let’s also say that the author has the reputation of writing a very good book and the author was able to hit the perfect audience.  For practical sake we’ll put his response at 2%.  This would mean that his 2% books sold will generate $1,400 profit ($14/book x 100 books).  Clearly, this response rate would not generate a profit for our author; in fact, our author doesn’t break even until 10.22% response ($7,150/$14 = 511 books/5,000 mail pieces).

Now let’s look at the same mailing but a different offer; the discount loyalty card for the book store.  The loyalty card costs $25 and offers the buyer a 10% discount on all purchases for a full year.  Here we have a couple of things working in our favor.  We have a much lower cost to produce and issue the card, let’s say $1, and we also generate repeat business.  The down side is that we’ll have to sell all books to this card holder at a reduced price.  Some card members will not redeem the full value of $25 discount card which may or may not be viewed as a plus.  The bookstore that can offer at least an hour of pleasure browsing for the average visitor, card members will come back again and again and redeem their full value.  This should be considered a positive in the eyes of the bookstore owner as they will surely make more revenue in the long-run, even if they are selling books at a discount.  In this second example, a 2% response would generate much higher profits per new customer generated, thus a positive return on investment.  To follow the math in detail read the next paragraph, otherwise, skip to the High Ticket example.

Let’s look at the numbers for the bookstore offering a discount card via direct mail.  We’ll set the mail piece cost and response at the same rates as the first example.  $1.43/pp x 5,000 pieces = $7,150 in campaign cost.  100 responses x $25/per card = $2,500 gross revenue.  This loyalty card costs $1/each x 100 cards = $100 or a gross profit of $2,400.  Let’s now consider that 60% of the responders redeem the full cost of their discount card, and the remaining 40% only redeem ½ the value.  Let’s also assume that the average mark up on all books in the stores is 100%.  This would mean that the 60% fully redeemed cards would purchase $250 ($25 card cost / 10% discount) in one year to breakeven on their purchase of the $25 discount card.  Even with a 90% discount, this would yield $111 ($250 total revenue – book cost ($250/.90) / 2 = $139 book cost) x 60  = $6,660 in profit on these book sales.  The other 40% of the discount card buyers redeemed half the value generating an additional $55.5 total per customer profit x 40 = $2,220.  So, adding the profit on the actual cards of $2,400, plus 100% of the book sale profit of $8,880 ($6,660 plus $2,220), we come to a gross total profit of $11,280.

High Ticket Example – Furniture Retail
With high ticket items promoted via direct, the math needed to understand why it works is quite simple.  Far fewer responders need to make a purchase in order for the campaign to be a success.  Instead of a $24 book, or a $25 discount loyalty card, higher-ticket items such as mortgage refinance (averaging $3,000 to $4,000 and up in commission to the mortgage broker), retail furniture (profits of $500 plus per piece of furniture), or a new automobile (net profit to the dealership of $500 to $1,000 plus), can quickly absorb the cost of a campaign in just a few sales.  Higher ticket items sold through the mail simply covers the investment cost faster with far few responses.  Few responses needed to break-even on your direct mail investment means a much lower investment risk.

When considering direct mail, every small business owner should consider the profit per unit sold, and work through the numbers to determine if what their break-even point will be.  It’s a good exercise for any business professional to at least understand what the best lead acquisition program is for their respective business.  By measuring break-even and ROI every time, you are better able to invest your marketing dollars more wisely.

Rate of Response
There truly is no industry acceptable response rate.  Some will tell you that 1% to 2% is average, while others will tell you that between 1/2% to 1.5% is more likely.  The truth is that far more first time mailers will attempt direct mail one time and one time only.  They will neglect the basic preparation and perhaps see zero response from their sizable investment.  Their first direct mail test is so painful that they will simply look elsewhere to promote their business.  This does happen often.  And the main reason for this is not just because their hitting the wrong audience, with the wrong offer, wrong creative, and at the wrong time.  It’s more likely a combination of these exact factors.  Successful direct mail is truly an art and science.  Successful direct mail is achievable but it requires more than paying someone to get your logo on a postcard and in front of a mail recipient.  It requires one to go through the process of evaluating what exactly your mail recipient will respond to and what they won’t.  You have a mail box and you receive direct mail advertisements every day.  What do you see that stands out from the crowd?  Why do you respond to only a few pieces of direct mail and ignore the rest?  Likely you’ve got all the gardening supplies you need today.  You’ve seen these types of bait-and-switch direct mail offers before.  You’ve been to that restaurant and it’s not what the mail piece says it is.  You simply cannot afford that new car or vacation right now.  Your children are grown so the mailer used the wrong mailing list.  You’ve just refinanced your home and are definitely not in the market.
Don’t put the same offer and same mail piece in front of the same people.  Consider something different when you mail.  Consider a much stronger offer to the right audience.  Consider your competition and what they’re offering.  Consider the emotional side of your potential customer and how you could position your product or service as a solution, rather than a low cost leader.  Talk to a direct mail professional, or two, about what you should expect, what you might want to offer, and what you might do to increase your response rates before you invest in direct mail, or any advertisement medium for that matter.

The Process
As with every advertisement medium, to maximize your chances for success, start with a plan.  Put pen to paper and draft exactly what you plan to do with every dollar you spend, the number of people you want to mail to, what your direct mail audience looks like, what your results expectations are for this campaign, and how you will execute all the necessary items to make it happen when you want to make it happen.  In your plan you will want to be sure you include what increase level of inventory you will want to have on hand to support the additional business, and do you need to adjust the labor schedule or hire more staff to provide satisfactory customer service.  Drafting a plan will help you cover those items that are sometimes over looked and can help you prepare for your next campaign event by comparing notes from previous campaigns.

The process of a direct mail campaign starts with identifying who you will want to mail before you develop your printed material.  This way you get your creative juices flowing in the right direction.  Once the mail pieces are printed, you’re stuck with them.  Depending on the acquisition mailing list you are ordering, some will have restrictions as to what they can mail.  If there are restrictions, you’ll want to gain approval with the art and copy before you go to press.  And make sure your mail piece pairs well with the audience you are planning to mail.  We’ll talk more about pairing the piece with the audience later.

Align yourself with a team of industry experts.  Talk to the printer and list broker to make sure you’re comfortable with their experience level in the industry you are in.  If nothing more, they can help you properly set your expectations and run through the numbers with you such that you can determine if this investment is right for your business.

The printer may have the ability to provide the mailing list for you, if so; have them run counts of the audience you want to mail so you can firm up your potential market territory.  Be sure there are enough mailing list records that fit your desired audience within the market boundaries you wish to mail.  This mailing list count will give you a clear picture of how large your potential audience truly is such that you may want to make several mail drops over time, staggering them in equal quantities to accomplish your campaign goals.

Your printer will not only tell you how much everything will cost and how long everything will take, but they will also be able to tell you how long the postal service will take to deliver your mail to it’s final destination.  Talk to printer about timing, and realistic delivery times.  Make sure this timing matches your desired “open day” and in the case of an event, be sure you give the mail recipient enough time to plan his/her week to fit your event day into their schedule.  Again, aligning yourself up with an industry experienced printer or mail service provider will help you plan accordingly.

So basically you identify your audience, decide on some preliminary themes and offers for your mail piece and sit with your creative artist.  Explain your concepts and ask for suggestions.  Again, if you’re working with experienced professionals in your industry, you should be able to get some possible samples or input as to how this layout might look before the final copy is completed.  The artist will provide his/her final mock-up for your approval.  This mock-up should impress you, if it doesn’t, ask for a revision.  Be sure to read every word on the mail piece to check for spelling errors that the address and phone number are correct.  This final piece then goes to print and is quickly applied your mailing list address.  Once this is complete it’s off to the post office.  This whole process could drag on for weeks, or happen within a few days, depending on how efficient you and your team are.  Should you plan for multiple drops with the same mail piece, your printer can save you quite a bit of money but printing all the pieces the same day and storing any unused pieces for later drop.  Be sure to ask ahead of time if your campaign will include a volume discount.

Mailing List Data
For starters, let’s consider your most valuable asset; your existing customer list.  By far, most every business can benefit from compiling and maintaining an internal database of customers.  If you’re in an industry that generates potential repeat customers, mailing to this existing list of customers for new business is the most success direct mail prospecting you can do.  We’ll discuss this type of direct mail campaign shortly.  For those businesses that do not generate potential repeat customers, you can still benefit from maintaining a database of existing customers.  This too will be discussed in greater detail shortly.  The main point here is that your database of existing customers should to be compiled and maintained.

Information to include in this database are first and last name, mailing address, phone number, email address, and any transactional data you can capture on your customer; how much do they purchase, how frequently they purchase, how recent did they purchase, what products or services they purchased, and did they respond from a previous direct mail campaign or other form of advertisement.  The more you are able to segment your internal customer database, the better you’ll be able to version specific communication to them whether it be postal direct mail, email, or other mediums.

Repeat customer type businesses
For those businesses which pay special attention to existing customers to keep them coming back for more, it’s imperative that you systematize your communication with them in an attempt to develop a communication dialog.  Like a good restaurant owner remembers his/her customers, refers to them by name, and knows what they would like on the menu, your existing customers too must be remembered, or be forgotten.  Direct mail is an excellent way to develop this relationship.  Through invitations to an event or offering a discount for loyal customers only, you can recognize your existing customers and make offers to them differently than you would to non-customers.

As this database grows, look for patterns within the transactional data you’ve collected.  You may find that your most profitable and frequently purchasing customer base all reside within 4 miles of your store location.  Identifying this pattern allows you to mail reminder letters to this group, while the customers who live further away might be mailed a discount loyalty card offer.  The more you understand your customers, the better you’ll be able to identify opportunities for growth.

Acquisition Mailing List data
Not all businesses have repeat customers.  Many businesses will generate a sale from a customer which satisfies the customers need for years to come.  Businesses such as real estate, life insurance, and mortgage lending all win a customer, and then likely not see them again for years to come.  In order for this type of business to survive, you must sell a “high-ticket” item, be located in an extremely busy industry where flocks of people are walking by their store front, or focus on nurturing referral business.  For these types of businesses, it’s still important to maintain a database of internal customers.  If only to follow up, thank them for their business, and ask for a referral.

With simple analytics, you can also profile your customer database to get a better idea of what they look like, to then mail to other similar looking people.  The purchase of this “other” data is considered an acquisition mailing list.  It’s one that you acquire from a mailing list vendor.  Your goal is obviously one of finding new prospects that look exactly like your current customers, thus increasing the likelihood of a positive response.

Internal Customer Database Profiling
Database profiling is the process of appending demographic and psychographic elements to a customer list of names and postal addresses.  This is done by passing your internal customer mailing list against a larger universe mailing list of the population that contains not only the names and addresses of the these people, but also various demographic and psychographic elements, and appending data where there is a match of name and address.

The larger the internal customer database of names and addresses, the more statistically valid your profile results will be.  The ideal quantity for a statistically valid sample is 10,000 records or greater, however, many businesses will draw conclusions about their own customers with quantities as low as 3,000 records.  Of course, the higher the quantity, the greater the accuracy will be.

Many service providers will offer a number of predetermined “bundles” of append-able elements for consideration.  Depending on your product and service offerings, you should choose the most relevant bundle for your profile.  As an example, if you’re a multi-location home remodeling business with multiple markets, you may want to choose a bundle of elements that include property / mortgage data instead of one that includes hobby / interest data.  Elements such as year build, dwelling type, homeownership, length of residence, home value, and estimated LTV will likely paint a clearer picture of what your current customers look like in each market territory that’s relevant to buying behavior in your industry.

The process can be fairly simple.  So long as your database of customers is in a digital form and that all the fields in your database are consistent, the programmer should be able to perform the task within a few days and provide a penetration summary of the percentages of your database that have been appended and by what element.  From here you can draw conclusions about your existing customers, i.e., what income and age range most closely represents your customer, what is the value of their home, and is there a pattern of how long they’ve lived at their current residence?

There are many more complex variations of utilizing this technology.  The profile of existing customers might be compared to the profile of other residences in the same market territory.  In this case you would be looking for not only what your customers have in common with each other, but also how they look differently as compared to the rest of the population.  This information can be used for versioning your advertising messaging across all mediums.

The small business owner may not have an internal customer database that’s sizable enough to profile.  If this is the case with your business, you may still have a fairly good idea of what your customers look like.  Talk to your mailing list provider to determine how close you can get to your “wish list”.  Until you’ve properly accumulated a sizable “profile-able” database, you will most likely have to depend on your “best guess”.  Continue collecting your names and addresses as best you can so that you’ll be able to use this information to serve your data mining needs later.

Pairing your audience with your offer
Many a small business owner makes the mistake of coming up with a direct mail piece before truly considering their audience first.  For practical purposes, let’s assume you are planning an acquisition mailing.  Decide first who you are going to mail to before you begin designing your direct mail piece.

Considerations
•    Consider things like what your competition is mailing and how you will look as compared to your competition.
•    Consider the time of year you are mailing and what seasonal events might be competing for your potential customer’s attention.  As an example, mailing during the holiday is potentially dangerous in that many might have their attention (and available dollars) spent on the holiday occasion.
•    Consider the affluency (and location) of people on your mailing list.  Are they the type that will travel across town to save $5.00.
•    Consider the age range of your mailing list and what you would communicate to them to truly grab their attention.
•    Consider multiple versions of your mail piece to better communicate to more than one cluster group.  You may want one mail piece drafted for a younger segment, and another mail piece drafted for a senior audience.

Mail piece absolutes
There are 3 primary elements to a mail piece you absolutely must include.  They are as follows:

1.  Creative
Creative design is that artistic side of you mail piece that for many is the most difficult side.  What colors, font, clip art, photographs, design, paper quality, and white space should be included on your mail piece?

2.  Copy
What are you going to attempt to say to these prospects?  What are you not going to say to these prospects?  How much content will you include in relation to the artistic design of the mail piece?  All these questions will be answered in what we call “copy”.

3.  Offer
The offer is a crucial element of this mail piece.  Many small business owners miss this extremely important element.  What exactly are they offering the mail recipient?  If you cannot offer something of value to your direct mail audience, you’re doing little more than reinforcing your brand.  The absolute goal with any small business owners’ direct mail campaign is response / results.  Make an offer that causes your mail recipient to respond.

4.  Call to Action
The “call to action” is the time frame the offer is extended for.  If you’re having a grand event, state the time and date for this event is to occur.  Without a call to action, you’ll miss out on “sense of urgency” that brings people to take action.

Remember, what’s vitally important is that you have something of value.  If you don’t have something so totally awesome available that you want to scream it to the world, you probably shouldn’t use direct mail.  Likewise, if you don’t have something so totally awesome available that you want to scream it to the world, then maybe you should focus on creating something worth screaming about.

Campaign Measurement
The last portion of this tutorial article is to discuss measuring your response.  It’s very important that you measure something every time you mail.  Why?  Because you can.  Unlikely many types of advertisement mediums, direct mail is as measurable as you want it to be.  And the more you measure, the more you’ll learn, and the better you will mail again.  The key is that you make smarter and smarter improvements to every direct mail campaign so that direct mail yields a greater return on your investment.

At the very least, count the number of people walking through the store on event day, or an increase in sales revenue immediately following a direct mail promotion.  Better yet, offer a discount coupon that’s redeemable at point of purchase so that you’re able to track actual redemption, when the redemption started, and began to slow, and how much sales came in as a result of your coupon mailing.  Consider new customer sales from increased sales of existing customers.  Measure what type of customer responded from those who didn’t respond.  Look for patterns with the types of people visiting your business, going to your website, purchasing vs. browsing.  Poll these people if you can and directly ask them exactly what they would need to see happen so as to act today, as opposed to just browsing.
Campaign measurement is extremely valuable and should always be implemented.  Even if your results are less than satisfactory, what you might learn may be far more valuable to you that the dollars you’ve invested.

For more information about what you can do to make improvements with your next direct mail campaign, talk to one of the many helpful consultants available to you at BB Direct.  Visit our website at BB Direct, or call (866) 501-6273.

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 on any project that comes their way, waste precious time and energy, ultimately offer less than optimum products and services, and lose the potential for repeat business.  Think of yourself as an athlete attempting to excel as all sports at the same time.  You’ll score more points when practicing the same sport every day, than on learning many sports all at the same time.

2.  Convert prospects to customers by listening to their needs and acting on them
Your customers will tell you what they want from you if you ask them.  The magic happens when you develop the skills of asking the right questions.  This strategy shouldn’t be confused with a sales skill, but a business development exercise.  Customer centric businesses develop loyalty with their clientele and add new customers onto their book of business at a pace that increases bottom-line profit but doesn’t delete the resources to serve existing customers.  Think of your customers as partners in your business growth.  Center your business planning solely on the popular needs of your clientele.  Focus on differentiation such that your business serves those needs not satisfied elsewhere.
It’s important to understand that most of your clients businesses are on various stages of an expansion plan.  The more you can engage in discussion about these plans, the better you’ll be able to adjust your services.  What’s most important to your customers today may be replaced by something more important tomorrow.  Stay in tune with the goals of your clients and you are more apt to be viewed as an integral part of their expansion plan.

3.  Make a conscience effort to develop your vendor relationships
Whether your vendors have the same client centric focus business mindset as you do, remember that your vendor relationship is just as important as your customer relationships.  Your vendors of course want your business and thrive on the business their customers provide to them.  But consider for a moment that they themselves have a “book of business” with you in that mix.  If they’re doing their job, they’re focused on your growth.  Be the customer that expresses a desire to sell more of their product.  Continually ask for advise on how to better utilize their products and services.  Look for opportunities to engage in a richer understanding of their products and services without eating up too much of their precious time.  And be their favorite customer, i.e., polite and understanding, fair and non-emotional when problems arise, don’t be a “price gouger”, and pay all your bills on time.  In general, consider they too are in the business to earn a profit and don’t abuse the relationship.
In return, look to your vendor for information about the competition in general terms.  What’s selling more of than less and why?  What changes within the industry are potential red-flags to be mindful of and what might produce opportunities for you and your vendor?  Nurturing this level of relationship will afford you with more than your competition is receiving.  Likewise, by abusing this relationship you’ll likely get less than your competitors will get from these vendors and miss out of many potential opportunities over the years.

4.  Align yourself with a source of quality compiled data
How does your current source compare to the other databases available?  If you can’t answer this question, then how can you expect to sell the data?  List broker businesses win new business because they know their data, how it’s compiled, updated, how it compares to other sources, and how it’s best used.  One of the key attributes to data compiled data source is one that works with you, understands your desire to win new projects and grow your business, and support in these areas.  Your source for quality compiled data should continually seek new ways of growing business together.  Have a heart to heart conversation with your data source, not just about the data, but about your business growth.  If you don’t feel they are in support of your businesses, consider alternate options.  There are many sources for compiled data, all boasting the lowest prices, greatest number of selects, and largest count coverages.  It’s vitally important that you align yourself with a source that you can be proud of when you deliver a data solution.  Imagine this mailing list to be purchased for your own business.  Can you think of a better database to draw from that what you are providing?  If so, then make that change immediately, even if it means paying a premium.  In the long run your customers will thank you and keep coming back.

5.  Know when to turn business away
There are times when it simply doesn’t make sense to do business with certain businesses.  As a regular part of your business cycle, you should meet with your controller to review the types of accounts that not only pay well, but more or less profitable.  Put pen to paper and evaluate those accounts with low marginal profit but a high labor expense.  Many mailing list brokers get into a price war to win new business and many times the winner unconsciously bids below the profit breakeven threshold.  It’s only later that they realize they are simply unprofitable and must either make drastic changes or go bankrupt.
When thinking through your how profitable your business is, you should look at a customer comparison as they relate to profit vs. COGS, commission payouts, late pays, labor expense, project oriented verse online business.  Also consider those difficult, energy draining customers that, though they pay their invoice on time, they eat up precious time and energy looking for problems to nag you about.  Nothing zaps energy more than a those customers who always have problems.  Weigh your book of business, how many clients fall into this category, and consider ridding yourself and other of this burden.

To learn more about growing your list brokerage, visit http://www.bbdirect.com or call us at (866) 501-6273.

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 elements to draw more robust conclusions about the customers, albeit people and/or businesses.

Within your newspaper subscription file lies a mountain of untapped information about what not only what these subscribers have in common, but also who your best advertisers are and how to market for future newspaper subscriptions.  Further, in your given market territory, you have the capability of targeting the exact non-subscriber prospects that mirror your best subscribers.

Data Enhancement
Newspapers can use simple data enhancement processes to increase their knowledge of who their customers are and especially who their customers are not.  Let’s say your newspaper market includes 4 surrounding counties and your subscriber readership totals 30% of all households within these 4 counties.  By appending simple demographic elements to both your subscribership and non-subscribership files, you are then able to draw conclusions as to the difference between the two populations.  This information can help in describing your subscribers to potential print space advertisers, marketing to the non-subscribers for potential subscription offers, evaluating the editorial inclusions to increaser reader benefit, and how to best offer integrated solo direct mail marketing that reinforces your clients brand building and lead generation.

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 broker will do a better job in representing you and your direct mail marketing needs over going directly to the source of data.  Consider a mailing list broker as a buyers again.  When you go directly to the compiler of data, you won’t find the compiler sales representative suggesting that you go elsewhere because they aren’t right for your request.  Since not all data is compiled the same, there are subtle differences in the quality of data and coverage of elemental information.  We tend to find that Compiler A is better at tracking and capturing senior age information than Compiler B.  Your broker should know these differences and be able to point them out to you.

2. Mailing list brokers tend to specialize in certain vertical markets.  While one mailing list broker focuses on the smaller end-user market, others will focus on the larger volume mailers who resell print and mailing services as well as the mailing list data you provide.  Ask yourself if the mailing list provider you are interviewing has the experience with your industry.  Ask for references and ask to provide several examples.  Many mailing list brokers are good sales people who can talk data, but asking for specific examples stops many inexperienced mailing list brokers from attempting make up stories.

3. Consider a mailing list provider who you feel good about when you talk with them.  These guys are people too and a lot can be said for your gut feeling.

4. Does the mailing list broker get involved with measurement of response rates or just sell you the list and collect your direct mail campaign money?  A good mailing list provider can set proper expectations on deliverability and accuracy.

5. Can your mailing list broker clearly explain where the mailing list data comes from and how it’s compiled?  Does he/she know when the last time the file was updated?  Look for a mailing list provider who’s well versed in the details of the mailing list you are seeking.  If your mailing list broker struggles with the source of the mailing list, he/she may be repackaging the database information from a source you’ve already tested wasting your time and precious campaign dollars.

6. Consider only those mailing list provider who can put details in writing.  Make sure they can provide you with a clear description of what how the mailing list was created.

7. A good mailing list broker should be able to provide references of direct mail marketers who they’ve worked with in the past.  Call on these references and have a heart to heart conversation with them about considering this person.

8. Can your mailing list broker explain the strengths and weaknesses of the mailing lists they are providing?  Compare their recommendation list with other mailing list brokers and refer to your gut feeling on who’s more qualified.

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 too may have success. The usage report is a tool that it a first glance but by no means is an exact measurement of how your campaign will do.

2. Data hygiene and update schedules

It’s important to understand the data hygiene and update schedule of the mailing list you’re considering. Ask the source mailing list manager how deliverable the mailing list is expected to be. Ask the source mailing list manager how often the mailing list is updated. Frequency of NCOA and updates to the mailing list will help you understand what to expect before you direct mail to the names and addresses on this mailing list.

3. Choose a good mailing list broker for guidance

Choosing a good mailing list broker is the primary key to success. A good mailing list broker can tell you from experience which particular mailing list has the greatest chances for a successful direct mail campaign. Choose your mailing list broker who have industry knowledge and experience you’re in and one who can speak from experience how the mailing lists are compiled or captured.

4. Profile your internal customer mailing list

A simple internal customer mailing list profile will go along way to deciding on what criteria would be when building your mailing list. To find “look-alike” type people as those on your internal customer mailing list, have your direct mail list broker enhance your internal mailing list with several demographic and psychographic elements of information. These elements will tell a simple story about what all your existing customers have in common. Knowing this will help you decide what you should be chosen when building your acquisition direct mail list.

5. Profile the market you’re attempting to penetrate

Some preplanning can also be helpful when building your acquisition direct mail list. A new business in a new market should always size up the population, what the people there look like in terms of age, income, home value, and so forth before they begin building their mailing list. Running counts within an area can help a business determine who their new market “ideal customer” will be. The typical resident in Kenosha County Wisconsin looks vastly different than one in Orange County California.

6. What’s worked before, and especially what’s not worked before?

The key to mailing list success is measurement. If you invest in a direct mail campaign, you’ll want to measure the response results and compare those results from your previous campaigns. Doing so will allow you to make better decision making when it comes to building your next mailing list.

7. Saturation Mailing vs Compiled data

Sometimes it’s better to perform a direct mail campaign using a saturation resident occupant mailing list than to pay the extra amount to build a mailing list from your compiled element choices. The cost of the mailing list and the savings on postage should be considered when making this decision. If your product or service is right for almost everyone, this should be considered. An upscale restaurant may cater to only the upscale residence within a mile from it’s location but everyone has to eat and even the less fortune will splurge to dine out upscale.

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 your competitions direct mail piece.  Be sure your direct mail piece clearly defines your offer and that your offer is clearly different.  The offer doesn’t have to be better, but has to be different.

3.  Series mailings
Building brand is reinforced by mailing your direct mail audience multiple times throughout the year.  The message you’re sending to your audience should be consistent to be remembered.  By renting your mailing list for a multi-use, you’re able to direct mail the audience as many times as you’d like within a period of one year.

4.  Keep consistent with your message
There is a synergistic effect to consistently voicing the same message whether it is across multiple mediums of advertisement or multiple times through the use of direct mail.  Though direct mail marketing is one of the most measurable and controllable, your message should be consistent and clear to be heard and remembered by most.

5.  Setting expectations
If you’re a direct mail marketer representing a business who’s investing in direct mail, be sure to properly set the expectations of the direct mail campaign.  You should explain the possibility of undeliverable direct mail and what percentage.  You should also properly explain the potential response rates your customer should expect.  This should be done before the dollars invested are spent and in conjunction with the offering of a plan of action to take for various response rates.

6.  Business reply by mail
It cannot be said enough, response measurement is an important component to your direct mail campaign.  Including a response vehicle such as a Business Reply by Mail allows you to do just that.  Offering a catalog, order form, test product, free newsletter, etc…will help you decipher those you’ve direct mailed to that have a sincere interest in your product or service, from those who more likely don’t.

7.  Always be testing
No matter how successful your direct mail marketing campaigns are you should always be testing something.  Take a successful mailing list and attempt to learn something new from these direct mail responders.  Takes have of those initial responders and mail them twice as often as the others and see if the purchasing activity increases.  Append demographic elements to the entire mailing list of responders and see if there is any consistency or pattern with these responders.  You may find a cluster of responders from which you can test multiple versions on.

8.  Consider mailing to businesses for a consumer offer
Some offers typically direct mail marketed to a consumer mailing list could be direct mail marketed to a business mailing list.  After all, there are people who receive the mail at the business.  Those recipients aren’t used to receiving a personal offer so your direct mail piece may stand out from the rest.  This approach isn’t for every product/service but worthy of consideration for the simple fact that people creatures of habit.  Many affluent consumers are used to getting bombarded at home and many of the direct mail pieces get very little attention.  What they probably don’t see too often is a mail piece that’s completely unrelated to there employment arrive in the middle of their work day.  Still many people are in a different mode while at work, perhaps more relaxed, away from the children, fresh mind-set because it’s earlier in the day, and perhaps will are more able to offer your direct mail piece a bit more attention at their place of work.

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.

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.

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.