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Life Event Direct Mail Marketing

Posted by Brian Berg Google+

 

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

 

For the most part, much of what people purchase is random, meaning that one persons decision to shop for a new sofa might happen today or in six months.  For one person It may feel to shop for a new sofa today.   For another person, shopping for a sofa today would be impossible as there are simply too many distractions.  People purchase for many random reasons:  they are bored and want to feel different, their friend just upgraded their living-room set so they want to do as others do, they are depressed and a new sofa is, in a small way, a way to replace part of their old life.  Many people shop because they are able to afford a continual circulation of new and exciting “things” within their life; they are consumers.  Still others wait until the last moment for reasons of practicality. 

 

Whether they are simply practical and conservative by nature, or they cannot afford to shop for large ticket items on a whim.  The list goes on from changing an old look to a new look because they’ve watched a good movie or read a good book, or they want others to see them differently.  With direct mail to random buyers, your goal is to reinforce your brand, nurture those reasons to act now and make a purchase, and position your new product or service as better than their current product or service.  If your direct mail recipients are not buyers today, your direct mail piece will hopefully register in their memory for when they are in the market.  Over time, a small percentage will respond to your direct mail offer because you’ve brought their decision to respond to the forefront of their mind. 

 

They are now ready, and you were the one they chose. Life event marketing suggests something different than the random.  Life event marketing suggests that there are times in a person’s life in which there is a higher degree of attention for change.  It suggests that outside of random buying behavior of the average American, there are times when people are more predictably responsive to a direct mail marketing campaign.  Life event direct mail marketing is designed to communicate a highly relevant offer to a highly relevant audience via their mail box. Throughout a person’s life, a number of life events occur that shifts ones focus and financial priority. 

 

People all experience changes in life, whether they be planned or unplanned, happy or sad.  Along with this shift in priority comes a shift in spending habits, making life event mailing list data an ideal direct mail audience for many products and services.