Direct Mail Strategies for Success

 
 

Direct Mail Strategies for Success

Current data shows more than 70 percent of recipients look forward to receiving their mail, and have purchased a product or service from a direct mail piece. (Epislon) Additionally, direct mail print ads remain effective, especially with B2B and B2C companies.

 

To maintain direct mail success, your business needs to find its own unique strategy. The days of sending a simple printed postcard and expecting a huge response are a thing of the past. You need to rethink your direct mail design and tactics if you want to capture your potential customer?s interest.

 

Consider your audience. Are they past customers or prospects? What should your direct mail piece look like to capture their attention? What can you do to have these potential customers open your direct mail, rather than simply tossing it in the trash?

 

In today?s digital generation, a modern-day direct mail marketing tactic example would be combining a print direct mail piece with a Quick Response (QR) code. Any potential customer with a smartphone can use their phone?s camera to read a QR code without extra work. You are able to craft a landing page for the QR to direct people to, with your message.

 

Consider how many people carry a smartphone. Smartphones are used by potential customers of all ages. Hence this QR direct mail approach has the potential to be successful with customers of all ages. www.targetmarketingmag.com

 

 

Along with digital direct mail, print direct mail remains an effective marketing strategy. Believe it or not, if your target audience is millennials, this age group is the most receptive audience to print direct mail tactics. (United States Postal Service) Yet to make this marketing strategy a success, your business needs to first capture your customer?s attention, no matter their age. Read some Direct Mail Marketing Ideas that Actually Work and learn how to get your envelope opened or print ad read below:

 

 

Stand Out ? Capture your potential audience?s attention by using a variety of print tactics that pop.

 

 

Here are just a few examples:

  • Full Color
  • Glossy or matte paper
  • Unique envelope shapes. According to the Direct Marketers Association, over-sized envelopes have the largest response rate.
  • Personalize Direct Mail ? Include your customer?s name or a tailored message.
  • Include a Call-to-Action ? Include how your product or service can benefit your potential customer. Offer discounts to get the ball rolling.
  • Include Freebies ? Everyone likes to receive something free in the mail ? whether it?s a physical object or redeemable freebie.

 

How to Respond

Examples Include: Offer customers a variety of methods to respond to your direct mail piece. The more methods offered, the better chances of results.

 

  • Postage-paid post cards
  • Phone numbers
  • Customized URLs
  • QR Codes
  • Redeemable offers

 

To keep your direct mail approach successful, your business has numerous options to utilize. The primary focus is to keep your direct mail strategy creative and interesting, and you will keep your potential audience?s attention.

 
 
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Back to the Future of Direct Mail

 
 

Back to the Future of Direct Mail

Direct mail strategies for success-

Tips for increasing the power of your direct mail campaigns. (blog) Direct Mail is Making a Comeback. Currently, the direct mail industry is worth approximately 44 billion dollars. Yes, billion with a ?B?. That is a lot for an industry that was going extinct just a few short years ago. The direct mail industry has stood the test of time, no matter what the obstacle. Through the internet and email marketing, cell phones, home computers, direct mail has kept on trucking. They’ve gone head to head with a stampede of social media channels, and yet the industry remains as solid as ever. So how does a traditional industry like direct mail continue to thrive in the face of its digital opponents?

 

Most marketing professionals expect large growth in the direct mail industry over the next several years, and printing companies are experiencing a higher demand for traditional direct mail marketing. The recent uptick in direct mail popularity can be attributed to ample targeting methods and the ability to better personalize and control direct mail. Tangible mail holds its own within the multichannel marketing space.

 

Marketing agencies did not previously have targeting or measurement capabilities like they do today by using QR codes, click through rates and UTM parameters to track campaigns. In a not so distant past, things seemed to be a bit more straightforward. If you wanted to connect with prospects, you spent money to get in front of them in one of the few available channels: TV, newspaper or direct mail. Let’s take a dive into direct mail’s lineage and how this multi-billion-dollar industry came to be what it has evolved to today.

 

Direct Mail Beginnings

Now a days, marketers track a complicated customer journey across dozens of different channels and devices. We have analytics and excel docs with years of consumer data at our fingertips to better help us make important marketing decisions. However, in the mid-1900’s, direct mail gave companies and agencies a simple way to report on purchases. It was widely praised as an inexpensive means to understand consumer buying habits. In the 1960s, the ZIP codes began to gain wide use. Before the ZIP code, it was difficult to target appropriate recipients of direct mail, and before the computer, compiling and maintaining lists of supporters was tedious and costly. (Wikipedia)

 

With new tracking methods in direct mail advertising, targeting and measurement became possible. However, while the new targeting methods within the direct mail industry came to fruition, a wave of checks and balances like data accuracy, verification and honoring opt-outs became just as necessary. The daunting task to remove duplicates and subscribers from direct mail lists required dozens of people to continually cross off one name at a time. Once they were purged, the direct mail list required hundreds of typists to create address labels for the next round of mailings. Despite the work involved, response rates would come to define the expanding horizons of direct mail in the 1960s. (CMO Council)

 

The 1970’s & 1980’s

In the 1970’s, catalogs and direct mail began to consume mailboxes and wastebaskets. Credit card companies had found success with the ability to send ?no name? credit cards with offers via direct mail. As each year passed, more Americans opened their mailboxes to find more letters that addressed them as ?Dear Current Resident,?.

 

?Prior to the 1980s, direct mail and its practitioners were largely marginalized in the advertising world. As firms and marketers searched for ways to segment the mass market of consumers in the 1970s, direct mail proved to be an effective tool not only to sell products, but also to study the changing interests and buying behaviors of consumers.? (TandFonline)

 

As Michael Weiss explored in his 1988 book, The Clustering of America, the grouping method of American households based on ZIP code and lifestyle represented a sweeping shift in marketers? ability to directly target consumers with accuracy and at high volumes. (CMO Council)

 

The 1990’s

?The direct mail industry experienced explosive growth of the nonprofit sector in the United States ? quadrupling in the 1980s and doubling again in the 1990s and early 2000s ? led to a massive expansion in the use of direct mail to build and sustain large, nationwide donor and membership lists. Today, direct mail fundraising accounts for at least one-fifth of the more than $250 billion contributed annually in the U.S. to the nation?s 1.6 million nonprofit organizations.? (Wikipedia)

 

By this time, catalog shopping became a popular way to sell to consumers for brands like Lands’ End, dELiA*s, and Spiegel. Luxury retail stores such as Neiman Marcus and Tiffany & Co. got in on the catalog craze. Columbia Record Club, for example, began as a mail-order music club. It developed a large market presence during the 1990’s. At its peak, they managed a membership of 16-million music fans by offering a ‘2-for-One’ CD deal, along with various other promotions.- (MSP)

 

During that same time, direct mail to the lower and middle class began to decline. This was largely because urban populations decreased, urban populations spent less than that of their suburban counterparts on goods from catalogs, and postage costs increased.- (MSP) This accumulation of demographic data provided identifiable demographic information for marketers to utilize when sending direct mail to their target market. Studies found that the volume of advertising mail received by U.S. households increased with the amount of income, age of the head of the household, and the number of adults in the household. -USPS survey.

 

The 2000’s & 2010’s

– By the start of the year 2000, the direct mail marketing industry was entirely reliant on computers with large databases incorporating demographic and zip code information. Data compilation was on the rise. However, so was the use of home computers and email. During this time, the volume of marketing emails being delivered started to rise. Estimates indicate that North American direct mail volume declined from 93.1 billion pieces in 2008 to 77.9 billion pieces in 2014. -USPS Survey

 

The Data Protection Act was updated to ensure all email marketing included an opt-out. Soon after, the Can Spam Law was introduced in the U.S., setting the first regulations for commercial emails. (SmartInsights)

 

In the 2000’s and 2010’s, we saw the beginning of trackable elements that could take a direct mail recipient to a website from their cell phone using what’s called a QR code. It remains the most common cross-media device indicator to this day.

 

2020 & Beyond

According to Winterberry Group and DMA data, the U.S. direct mail spending and volume has slightly increased over the past two years. Direct mail is on the rise and the reasoning is in the 3.7% average direct mail response rate (second only to telephone). Companies are returning to printed communications versus electronic alternatives. Printing companies have seen a recent uptick in printed materials through 2018 and 2019 and anticipate more growth in their direct mail volume over the next few years. The true value of multichannel marketing lies in using the strengths of each medium combined, direct mail included.

 

Additionally, modern-day technology allows for a seemingly endless number of innovative direct mail marketing designs. There’s almost no limit to what you can do with your direct mail marketing campaigns. By combining print with mobile technology, you can launch an interactive experience from a mail piece.

 

“There’s no such thing as junk mail – only poorly designed and implemented campaigns.”

-The Smithsonian National Postal Museum

 
 
Categories: DatabaseUSA Services

Email marketing Tips for 2020

 
 

Email Marketing Tips for 2020

Ensure Deliverability

Every day an average 269 billion emails are sent and received ? some personal, some business, some otherwise. For companies electing to participate in email marketing campaigns to acquire potential customers, it?s imperative to seek the best approach to ensure your email is delivered.

 

There are several steps you can take to ensure that the delivery of your email is successful. Here are a few professional tips from our email marketing team to help you with your email deliverability.

 

Scrub & Enhance Your Database to Increase Email Conversions

Did you know that up to 34% of email addresses become outdated each year? This can be attributed to job changes, job promotions, unused email accounts and name changes. When you enhance your file against a vendor?s database, they will ?scrub? or remove these outdated emails furnish you with the new emails that your customers are currently utilizing. Enhancement service also provide your business with additional information about the customers you already have in your email list. Find information about your customers like age, income, home value etc. to further benefit your targeting efforts and help you create more curated content for your email marketing campaigns.

 

Segmenting Past Customers

For customers familiar with your business, break down your list into clumps or segments. You can define these segments however you think will be most effective. You can do this with past products purchased, web pages visited, abandoned shopping carts or demographic selects. By taking these steps, past customers will be encouraged to open emails from your marketing campaign and hopefully, make future purchases from your company.

 

Acquisition Email Targeting

Connect with people you believe are likely to purchase or interact with your brand, even if they?ve never bought your product before. You can purchase a targeted list of prospects who would likely be interested in the products your company markets. With the purchase of an acquisition list, you have the ability to target your ideal customer in many ways. Typically, you must determine if your customer is classified as ?consumer or business? to build your ideal list:

 
  • Consumer selections include geographic area, age, home ownership, home value, annual income, presence of children, pet ownership etc.
  • Business selections include geographic area, number of employees, years in business, annual revenue, square footage etc.
 

1. Subject Lines

  • Once you have narrowed your focus to a target audience, make sure your email subject line piques your customer?s attention. To successfully make this happen, optimize the language within your email subject line and email text. Examples of optimization include the following: Avoid excessive usage of capitalized letters, exclamation marks, or dollar signs ? to avoid having your email sent straight to directly to a SPAM or trash folder.
  • Use subtle, targeted language to engage your reader. Consider the who, what, when, and where when it comes to your potential customer. Next, consider the angle of approach and tone of your subject line to entice your audience. Use power words to grab their attention (such as ?exclusive? or ?special update? or ?breaking news?).
 

2. Types of Emails

When creating the email itself, consider the type of email you are sending to your customers. Here are just a few examples and statistics based on information from (Oberlo):

 
  • Personalized emails: The average open rate is 50% higher for emails with personalized subject lines
  • Welcome Emails: More than 82% of emails are opened.
  • Promotional Emails: Over 49% of customers prefer to receive promotional emails from preferred brands.
  • Interactive Emails: Adding sliders, collapsible menus, and/or GIFs, significantly increases click rates. Plus, since 49% of all emails are opened using cell phones, tablets, etc., ensure your interactive emails are optimized for mobile devices.
 

CAN-SPAM Compliance

Refusal to comply with CAN-SPAM act through commercial emailing will result in hefty fines for your family (more than $40,000) per each violating email. To avoid these costly, errors, make sure to follow the following guidelines: (HARO)

 

Do not use deceptive misleading header information or subject lines. Make sure to include your name, address and contact email to all emails sent out. Make sure to include an opt-out requests for customers.

 

By implementing these steps, your email marketing campaign has the potential to successfully grab your customers? attention and result in overall higher deliverability, open and click through rates.

 
Categories: DatabaseUSA Services

Consumer Targeting via Interests, Hobbies and Lifestyles

 
 

Consumer Targeting via Interests, Hobbies and Lifestyles

Targeting consumers with physiographic selects will increase your ability to convert them into viable leads for your pipeline.

 

Physiographic Selects

 

Our Consumer Database was created to provide a wide range of information using thousands of selections. With over 260 Million Consumers in our database, our file allows you to refine leads by choosing from hundreds of different criteria. This includes hobbies and interests.

 

Targeted consumer data gives you the unique opportunity to improve your marketing strategies. (Leighton Interactive, Why Collecting Customer Data is Crucial). When you can promote your service or product through targeted physio graphics like interests or hobbies, it increases your ability to convert those leads into tangible revenue.

 

Tailor Your Message, Target Your Market

 

Did you know: Nearly 67% of consumers are willing to share data in exchange for better, more targeted marketing? (Morey, Forbath, and Schoop ?Customer Data: Designing for Transparency and Trust,? May 2015, HBR). While getting the psychographic data is important, applying it to your marketing is how you make it effective. For example: If a targeted consumer spends a lot of time participating in fitness and dance classes and you are trying to sell a product in the nutrition space, you can incorporate images or offers that involve fitness and dance.

 

Take a look at the hobbies and interests AtoZdatabases offers in our consumer database:

 
  • Aerobics, Fitness & Spinning
  • Antique Collectors
  • Art Collectors
  • Fine Arts
  • Audio Books
  • Automotive Work
  • Aviation
  • Baseball
  • Basketball
  • Beauty & Cosmetics
  • Career Improvement
  • Children?s Interests
  • Cigars
  • Coin Collectors
  • Collectibles
  • Collectors
  • Community & Local Charities
  • Computer Games
  • Computers
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Cooking
  • Crafts
  • Cruises
  • Current Affairs & Politics
  • Dieting & Weight Loss
  • DIY
  • Domestic Travel
  • Environmental Issues
  • Equestrian
  • Fashion
  • Fishing
  • Football
  • Gardening
  • Golf
  • Green Living
  • High Tech
  • Hockey
  • Home Audio Equipment
  • Home Improvement, DIY
  • Home, Furnishings & Decorating
  • International Travel
  • Investments Including Stocks & Bonds
  • Magazine
  • Military History
  • Money Seekers
  • Motorcycling
  • Movie Collector
  • Music Collecting Including Vinyl
  • Music Listener
  • NASCAR
  • Online Education
  • Organic Foods
  • Outdoor Hunting & Shooting
  • Outdoor, Camping & Hiking
  • Parenting
  • Personal Finance & Investments
  • Photography
  • Racing
  • Reading
  • Real Estate Investing
  • Religious & Inspirational
  • Running
  • RV Travel
  • Sailing
  • Science & Space
  • Science Fiction
  • Scuba Diving
  • Self-Improvement & Self Help
  • Sewing, Knitting & Needlework
  • Skiing
  • Soccer
  • Sports ? General
  • Sports & Sports Memorabilia Collector
  • Sweepstakes & Contests
  • Tennis
  • Theater & Performing Arts
  • Upscale Living
  • Video Games
  • Wine
  • Woodworking
 
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AtoZdatabases Blogs

 

 

AtoZdatabases Blog Posts

AtoZdatabases is the premier reference and marketing database marketed to Library, Academic, and Government institutions throughout the U.S. This simple, user-friendly, web-based solution provides details on businesses and households within the U.S.

 

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