Understanding Direct Mail Lists
You have a solid direct mail marketing offer. You’re ready to catch eyes with some killer creative direct mail pieces [link to DM work page]. But if your direct mail list isn’t refined, vetted, and perfected, you don’t have squat. Why? Because the list is where it all needs to start.
Mass Targeting is Outdated
Direct mail has always been about rifles instead of shotguns, so to speak. List targeting is the foundation of direct mail – the “science” where the creative is the “art.” And a science it certainly is. From segmentation and persona development, to lead scoring to predictive modeling, today’s targeting methods have evolved thanks to the plethora of data points available – combined with advanced analysis technologies. And since direct mail printing and postage aren’t cheap, making sure you’re getting in front of the right people is the only right way to spend your direct marketing dollars. After all, if you aren’t interested in comic books, no splashy direct mail piece is going to get you to bite.PPC ads can be on Google, Bing, and – let’s be honest, it’s just Google and Bing. Because the two combined make up almost 100% of all searches. And their website partners, where all your text-based and display paid search ads go, too, are numbered in the millions.
frank’s Targeted Mailing List Approach
Industry standard for direct mail response rate? A mere 1-2%. But with 36 years of direct mail expertise under our belts, we consistently over-deliver. That’s because we know how to mine your data, identifying trends and developing insights that will steer your direct marketing strategies. But it takes a lot of thought to get there. And that starts with prospecting.
Understanding Your Customer
First step. Most important step. You have to know who your customers are – preferably your “best” customers, the ones who buy the most and spend the most (there’s a difference). That starts from within, by building a detailed profile based on customer characteristics, behaviors and buying habits. Data points can include anything from demographics like age, income, gender, marital status, education and so on, all the way to behaviors like interests, lifestyle and media habits.
Then we look at engagement with your brand, for example online and offline inquiries or past purchases, website analytics and e-commerce activity. All of this will give us the facts we need to create an accurate and robust picture of your highest-value target audience.
From Introspective to Predictive
Now that we know your customers, we can turn that profile into a predictive model – or a copycat prospect through selected direct mailing lists. These copycats do what copycats do best: look and act like your best customer. We’re not kidding when we say there’s millions of prospects. Because, at frank, our access to consumer lists is unparalleled. And this predictive modeling effort can have a domino effect on everything else that you do.
Now that you know your best customer, you can create personas that group different people with similar attributes. This can be applied to every other arena of your marketing – so you’re not just saving messaging dollars in one platform, but every other. Speaking of messaging…
Prospective Messaging
Since we know everything about your best customer, we know what kind of messages they’ll respond to. Maybe we’ll even test out a few [link to DM testing page].
We know what makes them happy, sad, worry or laugh. We know who they are. And because of that, we know how to tie in your product or service in a way that resonates with them, makes them hesitate while opening the recycle bin, dump the rest of the junk mail, and walk away with your piece in their hand.
So let’s get on the phone for a conversation about your business, and how we can help bring your direct marketing results into the double digits.