Targeted Direct Mail Campaigns
We’ve said it before – Direct Mail remains a powerful marketing tool in the digital age. But as with any advertising, a direct mail campaign works best when properly strategized. Having good graphic design, high-quality printing and especially, a well-targeted direct mailing list will maximize your return on investment. And here, we’re going to explore just how easy it is to target your audience with your next direct mailing
Options for Targeting Your Mailing
The old phrase in marketing is that you should fish where the fish are. But to take this metaphor a little further, a targeting mailing list is the difference between an expensive net and well-cast lure. Mailing lists offer an enormous array of selection options, making it easy to drill down on the sweet spot in your target audience.
USPS targeted mailing lists will allow you to select anywhere in the United States. This can mean entire counties, cities and zip codes. If targeting an area is most essential, you can select a radius from an address or even get custom drawn maps through neighborhoods and districts. But don’t limit your list to just geography before having a look at the demographic options.
With a targeted consumer list, you’ll be able to select the age, income, home value, gender and lifestyle interests of your direct mail recipients. But the options go even further, and in fact there are too many selections to list right here. Things like presence of children or elders in the home, religious interests, political affiliation, donation activity, net worth and pet ownership, cat or dog, are all selections you’ll find readily available.
Business to business mailers also get an array of options, including employee size, sales volume, SIC and NAICS codes and even minority or veteran ownership. All of this allows you to dive deep into your desired audience and pinpoint your direct mailing efforts.
How Targeting Mailing Lists Work
All that may sound too good to be true, so let’s explain how it all works. First off, the United States Postal Service keeps an extensive list of every address and occupant in the nation. This information alone creates Occupant Lists, which allows mailers to send to addresses without demographic data. And it allows mailers to verify the current occupants through the National Change of Address (NCOA) Database.
Then you have publicly available records such as phone directories, government records, licenses and so forth. And then you have more proprietary sources, like organization memberships and media subscriptions, for example. All these sources are then compiled into huge address databases, which are matched against the information USPS has for verification. You’re able to access these enormous compiled databases through list brokers, who help manage the selection process. Once you have what we want and you’re happy with the address record count, you’re free to rent or purchase this compiled information for your direct mail campaign.
What Selections Should I Use?
This kind of question speaks to the heart of your marketing campaign, and that’s a much bigger topic than this article is really meant to go into. But if you’d like help answering that, the guys at Freedom Creative Solutions are more than willing to help with all your marketing needs. Give us a call at 336-602-1901, to learn more about targeted direct mailings, and about how to design and print an effective mailpiece.
