If there is one thing I can't say enough it is that the most
important part of your mailing campaign is your mailing list.
It is vital that you put the right amount of energy into
learning about lists - who to mail to - so that your mailing
efforts aren't wasted. There are a few different ways that you
can get an adequately targeted list.
As always the first step is to determine who your target market
will be. Should you market to consumers or businesses? For this
example consider that your product is a set of home woodworking
tools. This should be marketed to consumers because it is not an
industrial grade product. Good, now we have narrowed it down to
only 291,324,219 people in the US. As a minimum, your mailing
campaign should send to the same names three times. So all you
have to do is send out 873,972,657 postcards at $0.185 per
piece & you get the point. We need to narrow it down some more.
So how do you accomplish the narrowing of your list? Many
factors can be considered, including age, gender, zip code,
annual salary, profession and number of children are some of
the more common qualifiers. It may take a while to figure out
what combination works for your specific product. Don't worry
about political correctness when considering whom you should
mail to. It is perfectly acceptable to test certain lists that
may be considered "stereotypical". Many times these lists will
work well. But you never know until you test them.
A special eye cream would go to women over 40, right? You need
not worry that you're targeting "older women" or that 40 is no
longer considered old. No matter how great an idea you have
about a certain market, ALWAYS DO A SMALLER TEST MAILING FIRST!
Average test mailings run around 1000-1500 names. Once you see
acceptable returns on the smaller mailing then you can jump in
with the larger numbers. You may think 40+ is a good age to
start with the eye cream, but you may get better results
purchasing age 50+. Test test test!
Sometimes, like with our home woodworking tools, you have a
product or service that you are not comfortable that you can
adequately narrow your list by the normal qualifiers. You can
make certain assumptions about people who are woodworking
hobbyists: Mostly Male, Probably Homeowners, but what else do
you really know? At this point you may want to consider using a
privately "managed" list. These lists are going to cost more per
name but will give you a much better way of pinpointing possible
customers. For example you could order the subscriber list for
Fine Woodworking Magazine. The cost per name would be $0.095
per name compared to the normal average cost of $0.05 per name.
These names are nearly double the cost, however you are
guaranteed that all of the names you get are for people
interested in woodworking and therefore are much more likely to
be interested in your product. With the "women over 40" example
- some may be wrinkly and some may look quite young and aren't
even thinking of eye cream yet.
Managed Lists are not appropriate for all situations, but can
be a major help when a very specific target is needed. Don't
fret over the extra cost, the more targeted names will
undoubtedly show greater overall
returns in the end.
The purpose of special mailing lists is to target a specific
type of customer for your specific type of business. The
eventual end result is more customers and a better bottom line.
And this is what we all want, right?
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Joy Gendusa
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