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Helpful Hints
How to Mail the Right List.
The more you know and can tell me who your best
customers are, the better research I can do to help you
The more you know about your customers, the more targeted
the promotion.
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mail the right list.
Consider these questions:
For mailings to consumers:
What age range do your customers fall into?
Do they tend to be male or female, or doesn’t
it matter?
Do they live in apartments, condos or homes or
doesn’t it matter?
What regions, states or towns to they tend to
live in, or is there a radius around a certain zip code? An
example would be a chain of retail sores that
wanted to mail to consumers that lived within 5 miles of each
store.)
Are there any areas where you know they don’t
live or you don’t want to mail to? (An example would be
areas
damaged by hurricanes etc.)
What is their typical income?
Is your offer geared to a certain credit score?
(Access to individual credit data is controlled by law.)
Are they married or single; do they have kids
or doesn’t it matter?
Are there certain types of careers that they
have?
Do they have common hobbies or interests?
What problem do they have that you can solve?
What are your competitors doing to address this
market?
For mailing to business.
What is the typical company size in terms of
employees and sales volume?
Is there a certain job function you want to reach?
Are there regions of the country, states or towns
to be selected, or area codes, or a radius around a zip code?
Are there SIC codes?
Are you interested in new businesses, credit
rating, number of business phone lines, or other attributes?
How are your competitors reaching this market
now?
Making Your Message Work.
Although the right mailing list is one of the
key elements to the success of your program, so is the attractiveness
of the package, the graphics, the copywriting and your offer.
How the right list can fail.
I happen to play percussion and have sought out
places where I get great advice and save a lot of money on new
gear Because I subscribe to drumming magazines and these lists
are available to rent, I got a colorful direct mail piece advertising
educational videos. The mailer figured that because I subscribe
to these magazines, I’m a perfect person to send the mailing
to. They were right, but the mailing was wrong.
The problem was the offer; each product was at
strict retail plus shipping and the stores that I buy from all
offer a substantial discount. Because I subscribe to these magazines,
the publisher knew I am an active buyer, but they didn’t
think through the process to understand that a subscriber is
also going to be educated enough to buy at a sharper price than
retail. Always think through your offer so you don’t send
the wrong offer to the right audience.
There is an old story about the client who told
the advertising agency that they didn’t want to do direct
mail because direct mail didn’t work. So the advertising
agency proposed a piece where the headline read “Who Says
There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch” and the copy
explained that all the person had to do was respond and they
would get $5.00 in cash for a free lunch. Of course the immediately
panicked because they didn’t want to give out thousands
of dollars!
So the adverting agency’s point was that
direct mail works, it was just that this mailer’s previous
offers did not.
How to Write an Ad
How your message is crafted to have meaningful
impact and motivate your reader to action is called “writing
copy.” You can write your own, or hire a pro. And we have
sources to help you either way. Both ways will involve a learning
curve and both ways have their own advantages and challenges.
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