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Targeting for profit
The essence of direct mail is its ability to precisely target it’s recipients.
It’s truly a beautiful system and it recently got a lot more amazing, as
you’ll see shortly.
A lot of people don’t realize this, but a tremendous amount of
information on each of us is being stored, analyzed and sold everyday.
In the last three years have you bought a bunch of electronics? Well
you’re probably on a list somewhere of people that buy electronics.
Do you use credit cards when you go to the health food store to
buy supplements? You’re probably on a list somewhere not only as
someone interested in healthy living but also on a list of people who
use credit cards. Your age, sex, marital status, credit profile, household
size, vehicle make and model, buying habits, birthday, and about a
million other things are on lists everywhere for marketers to purchase
at any time they please.
The reason that people want information like this isn’t to scam you
though, it’s to market products or services that you might like, directly
to you.
Targeted Marketing Example
Let’s pretend you are a somewhat avid wine drinker. On the internet
one day you were searching for reviews of wines that are sold at your
local liquor store. You signed up for an online newsletter belonging to
a wine enthusiast web site.
They sell their list of subscribers to a Wine magazine called “Wine
Conneiouser”. “Wine Conneiouser” sends you a free issue with an
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offer for a 12 month subscription for only $12. You subscribe and
they sell their list off to large databases that track buying behaviors
and lifestyle interests. Soon, you’re getting catalogs with gorgeous
wine racks, wine-of-the-month club promotions, and maybe even
Alcoholics Anonymous letters.
Smart advertising departments will begin to intelligently market to
you because they know you’re interested in their products and aren’t
likely to perceive anything with wine in it as junk mail.
If you, the wine enthusiast, happens to get a postcard in the mail from
a competing local liquor store for 15% off any case of wine, are you
likely to use the coupon? Of course you probably will.
What if you start getting coupons from them every month, would you
likely stop buying wine from your normal place and start going where
the deals are?
Are you seeing how beautiful a good direct marketing campaign can
work? It reaches the right people and keeps getting in front of them
until they break down and buy. Then it keeps continuing to make them
come back as often as possible.
Now what if this liquor store sent it to random people rather than
people who already show interest in wine? And what if they didn’t
even send a coupon, but just something that said “Jim’s Fine Spirits, in
business over 20 years”?
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That’s the difference between a poor campaign and a good one. A
good direct mail campaign:
• Reaches the right people
• Has 100% visibility
• Contains a compelling offer and a call-to-action
• Repeatedly gets in front of them over and over.
A bad campaign may stem from the lack of any of those above bullet
points. If you send out one single mailing to random people, put no
coupon or offer, and hide it in an envelope or squashed in a catalog, I
can guarantee that you won’t be happy with the results. In fact I’d be
surprised if you had any results.
This is why people have bad experiences with direct mail, they don’t
know what the heck they’re doing! That’s why they need someone who
does.
Response rates
This is the part that makes those of us who are experienced in direct
mail shake our heads.
Inexperienced direct marketers and business owners constantly say
things like this below:
“Well, direct mail gets a 2-3% response rate so...”
Statements like this are crazy. There’s no way to base your potential
results on a figure like this. It’s not like we’re just flipping quarters. So
much of our campaigns depend on the average sale price, offer, timing,
scarcity, etc...
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So you’re telling me that if I send out 100 postcards to random people
with a big bold graphic of the brand FERRARI, I should get at least 2
or 3 of them interested in buying a Ferrari right?
Or what if I sent 100 postcards with a coupon for a free car wash,
timed it to land on a sunny spring weekend, and sent it only to new
vehicle owners that lived within a quarter mile radius of the car wash
location? Am I still going to get 2 or 3 responses only?
Response is variable, yet fairly predictable.
Both of the above scenarios are ridiculous and will immediately
disprove any estimated response crap when someone mentions it.
The industry averages for direct mail do tend to hover around 3% as
a whole but that’s only an industry wide statistic. It means almost
nothing in relation to individual campaigns.
Response is affected by so many things that there’s no way to really
predict it until you consider all the variables and run mailings often
enough to test it. It doesn’t have to be risky though because once you
understand how it works, you’ll be able put the right ingredients in to
make it profitable every time.
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Key visual ingredients of a successful postcard
direct mail campaign.
• A good offer
• A clear call to action
• A bold image
• A compelling headline
Key strategic ingredients of a successful postcard
direct mail campaign.
• A precisely targeted list
• A large enough sample to mail (ideally 5,000 minimum)
• Repetitive marketing to the same list.
The List
The list is the most important element. You must have a targeted list
in order to direct market effectively. Your message has to reach the
right people as accurately as possible, which means you have to know
who the right people are and sometimes it can take a bit of creative
discovery.
Because this report is primarily devoted to you being able to offer
direct mail services to local businesses, it’s important for you to
understand what will be the ideal customer for your prospect.
Once you’ve got a business owners attention and can talk with them
about their customers, it’s easy to narrow down who to target, but
I find it’s best to have a good idea of what list might work best for
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your clients prior. This way you can pique their interest and use it as a
closing tool. When you approach a business owner with the fact that
you already have a list of interested people, you get their attention
much faster.
Targeting Example
Let’s say your wife works next door to a uniquely decorated childrens
store that showcases unique hand-woven diaper bags in the window.
Think to yourself “what kind of customer is likely to shop there and
buy those expensive diaper bags?”
Personally, I’d imagine it would be the families who have a baby in the
house. People tend to be twice as likely to buy things after a major life
event.
Now what if you could instantly find the addresses of all the people
that have just had a newborn?
Do you think that the store owner might be interested in getting her
products directly in front of everyone who in her area who just had a
baby?
Of course she would and she’d have no problem paying you if you
could market directly to them for her. While this example involves a
baby store, the concept is what’s important for you to understand. If
you have a list of people that are highly likely to buy something, all
you have to do is get that product or service in front of them.
A professional direct response marketing consultant would instantly
put together a direct mail campaign to reach the right people, which in
turn would drive in loads of new customers to her business. A person
selling websites or social media isn’t going to bring in any noticeable
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business. This is why direct response marketers get paid the big bucks.
This is why YOU need to learn how do these type of campaigns for
your clients!
Pulling lists
I mentioned before that targeting customer profiles recently got a lot
more amazing.
For decades, if you wanted a list of certain customer profiles, you’d
contact a “list broker” who could source the targets you wanted and
deliver them in a spreadsheet. Over the years, there have been more
and more websites that allow you to hand pick your own lists online
and buy them at very reasonable prices (usually ten cents or so per
lead).
You don’t actually buy them though, you “rent” them. Nearly every list
you order online will be good for ONE mailing only. You’ll need to
buy another list for future mailings or pay extra to have the permission
to use it multiple times.
If you want to pull lists on a frequent basis, the common choice in
recent years has been a program called “salesgenie” that gives you
unlimited views of your lists for around $1800 per year, required to pay
up front!
Plus if you want to download and actually use your lists to mail, you
have to pay extra when you need more than 500 or so. It’s always been
pretty much out of the range of any budding marketer.
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The golden ticket
The most incredible resource for pulling lists actually just became
available a few months ago. You can now look up and view unlimited
leads and download up to 25,000 per month, for only $24.95 per
month and you can cancel it anytime!
One month of using this resource and it will pay for itself many times
over. Even if you want to use it solely for prospecting, you’ll go crazy
over how useful it is. Want to know the phone numbers, addresses, and
emails of all small businesses in your local area that have less than ten
employees, make less than $500,000 per year and have good credit?
Just pull the list!
Focusing power
Want to narrow all your prospects down by industry or business type?
Want to view only dentists, physicians, or roofers?
Just pull the list!
This will save you ridiculous amounts of time and efforts in your
prospecting and while you prospect for certain businesses, you can
pull up their ideal lists as well to get a head start on their mailing
campaigns.
Hot lists
“Hot leads” are going to be your best friend forever. Hot leads are ones
that change frequently and contain ready to buy consumers. These lists
revolve around major events which create a window of behavior that
involves typically needing certain services and products.
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“Recently Divorced” is an example of a hot list. Think about who
might benefit from a having a targeted list of people just recently
divorced in your area? How about a gym or fitness center.
A targeted mailing campaign with postcards from a local gym
headlining:
“Remember how your body used to look?
“Get it back quick with our new
30 day rapid fitness program!”
This might deliver a very good response to recently divorced
individuals that are starting a brand new life, don’t you think?
Hot lists are incredibly responsive to direct mail and in my experience,
they are ultra-deliverable too (which means they have a low chance of
being returned).
Get into the mindset of the hot lead
When someone experiences a major life event, they often have new
desires, new outlooks on life, and new responsibilities.
In order to fulfill those needs, wants, and responsibilities, they’ll need
certain products and services. Since we were just talking about recently
divorced people, let’s think about them...
You have to start thinking of what goes on in their heads during this
life changing event. By understanding their thoughts and wishes, you
can target business that may want to market to those people through
you.
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What happens when someone is recently divorced?
• they have a fresh new look on life
• they want to become attractive again
• they want to meet new people
• they might want to buy a new house
• they want to buy new clothes
• they might be depressed
• they might be horny
• they might want spiritual guidance
• they might suddenly have more income
• they might have bad credit
• they might want a new car
All of these reasons can provide great marketing opportunities. This
is where the professional direct response marketing consultants shine,
and there’s no reason you can’t follow this same process in order to
profit yourself.
At first glance, most marketers would say “who the heck would want a
list of people recently divorced?”
But as you see, with some thought, we’ve come up with a lot of reasons
why someone would want to. I bet there’s well over 20 industries in
your local area that would love to get offers in front of every recently
divorced individual. They just never thought about opportunities like
this, and if they did, they probably never found anyone to handle it for
them.
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Strong emotional/visual marketing
When people are in emotional states (happy or sad), they’re much
more receptive to direct response marketing. That’s why when you’re
targeting hot leads, you want to hit them hard with an image and an
offer.
Think of the typical recently divorced female. She probably has
endured a difficult marriage and most likely she’s ready to experience
the world like she did before she got married. Chances are, she’d like
to get her body back in shape and restore some confidence.
A postcard with a great image on the front that matches a similar age
range to the average divorced female who wants to get back in shape
can be very powerful. Here’s one I literally just made as I wrote this
chapter...
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There’s no doubt about it, that image and headline is going to hit
home with a large percentage of recently divorced females.
Divine Intervention?
The headline reads “Isn’t it time to get your body back?”
She’ll probably think “Wow, yeah it actually is time to get it back”, and
may very likely blame this postcard on divine intervention. She has no
clue that someone has intelligently marketed to her because they know
she was recently divorced.
The back of the card
The back of the card is super important because that’s actually what
gets seen first in the mail (postage side up). Some key elements to
have on the back of a postcard is:
• A bold headline at the top
• A short blurb of copy
• Bullet points featuring the benefits
• A clear call to action
• A clear way to respond (website and phone number)
• A compelling offer
You want your target to be interested enough to turn the card over,
where they can see the striking visual that hammers home the message
you want to send.
You can actually design the back of smaller postcards in black & white
if you’d like but on larger size postcards (6x11 in particular) you almost
always want to print the backs in color.
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• Lose weight fast
• Feel better about yourself
• Shape and tone your body
Bold, clear
headline
Compelling offer that
stands out
Red Arrow
for strong
emphasis
Short copy
and benefits
driven points
Clear phone number
and website to re-
spond to.
Clear call to
action.
Divorced Female
123 Lonely Lane
Smithville, TX 12430
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Starting a Search:
Here I’m going to use my super secret online source that allows me
search over 50 databases that are updated weekly and monthly.
We’re going to find a hot list that we can market to the upscale babies
and kids store we talked about earlier.
PICKING A LOCATION:
I select a nearby county (low population so it’s all within driving
distance). 172 new parents are in the database.
Perfect for
targeting the
upscale baby
store
All new parents
within the last
five weeks.
I chose county,
you may need
to do city or zip
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RECENCY OF EVENT
Although you can certainly market hot lists weekly, in most cases it’s
best to just keep marketing to them monthly where the sample size
goes up. I choose five weeks.
VIEWING THE RESULTS!
All the names and address are displayed to me in detail. I can
download the list to an excel or openoffice spreadsheet and just send it
to my direct mail handler for delivery!
I always pick
Last five weeks
Instantly
download all the
records.
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For only $30 on gotprint.com you can print
1,000 postcards.
For $50 you can get a professional graphic
designer and layout artist
(gregg@y3kdesigns.net) to design your
clients postcards.
Fellow warrior Doran Peck (
myezprinter.
com) will MATCH gotprints price, print the
pieces for you, address them, sort them for
lower postage rates, and mail them each
month for only 35 cents each including
postage.
This means that you could sell the owner
something like “only $3 to send a postcard
with a special offer on it from YOUR STORE,
to brand new parents in our area!”
The total cost to you will be less than fifty
cents! Sending 150 each month would
make you $375 and you don’t have to do
ANYTHING BUT CLICK BUTTONS.
SECRET LIST SOURCE
The brand site that allows you to pull unlimited lists (and downloads) is
infofree.com
It normally costs $49.95 per month but if you use the promo code:
STRUCTURE
You get it for only
$24.95
every month and you can cancel any time!
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