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Demographics For Direct Mail

5K views 26 replies 10 participants last post by  KG007 
#1 ·
What kind of demographics would indicate if a prospect is a good fit for your company? Suppose you wanted to implement a direct mail campaign how would you know who to mail to?

List brokers can provide you with a list of homeowners that meet the criteria you are looking for, but what criteria should you be looking for?

The most obvious criteria would be things like:
Age
Marital status
Income
Length Of Residence
Home Value
Payment Method

What other demographics would be the most valuable to you?

I would like to hear from people that actually use direct mail. I don’t want to waste my time arguing with those that are not interested in using direct mail.
 
#5 ·
What other demographics would be the most valuable to you?
Place of employment, the number of children in the household, their spending habits, and their financial habits.

I market directly to single women who are a parent of 2 or more children and are employed by the government. If they are a family that spends money on frivolous items, they eat out more than 4 times a week (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and they save less than 8% of their income, they are a perfect match.

Some of the work that I do is sold on the "impulse buy" so when it comes to financial habits, I am usually targeting the person who pays their bills right before the cut-off date vs. the one that pays their bills in full and on time.

And being that the payday date is not confidential, knowing when gov't workers get paid help me determine when to advertise. e.g If payday falls close to the 1st of the month I'll wait until the following pay period to advertise.
 
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#8 · (Edited)
The answer to this is tricky.

The best information you can collect from past customers is the actual mailing list itself. It's almost impossible to guess at what past customers have in common.

In marketing circles the references to past customers are almost always means customers originally derived from a cearly defined mailing list. The reason why is because I could never ask my past customers the questions I need to know to make clear marketing decisions.

Take a credit report for example. If you are a contractor that sells large projects a credit report can often be a great way to pull a list.

DO NOT GUESS!!! That will get a person is seriously hot water. I would pick four groups and start combining income and credit. Make sure all four have a different formula.

Track results.

Once you have results you now have PAST CUSTOMER results not based on opinions and guessing but rather fact.

So lets say that with the four mailings you clearly discovered the highest returns were from people with X credit and X income brackets..........

Exapand the mailing quantity for another round and see if you get a similar response.

If that checks out and you verified it, the next step is to introduce a new parameter like Foreign cars vs American cars. (You would be shocked at what the difference is.)

That is how lists are built and that is why advertising is expensive. If you stick with it and go through this learning curve direct mail pays massive dividends. It's massive, make no mistake about that.
 
#12 ·
Mel,
I focus on Slate and Tile roofs---so I am ONLY interested in Households with slate and tile roofs
we use direct mail. I work with 2 lists

List # 1 is a list I developed by hand. The core of the list I got from a nearby realtor who culled it for me from MLS data covering the preceding 3 years-and then I built on that from searching neighborhoods in my spare time. this list covers a fraction of 4 counties------- I add to it and refine it constantly.

List #2 I bought from the Haines Co.- It is a list of Tile roofs only in a 5th county. It cost less than $200 and covers 1800 houses. Although we may work approx. 3000 addresses, they are widely scattered across 5 counties, so EDDM is not viable for us. WE use first class mail.

If I was YOU- I assume you handle residential asphalt shingling????
If I was you, I would simply pinpoint developments built approx. 18-23 years ago and then I would EDDM to those carrier routes.

As I mentioned before we use first class mail-and in 2013 we will be sending out approx. 500/week. In 20011-2012 we sent out approx. 500/month

Best wishes,
Stephen
 
#24 ·
I’ve tried that approach and it used to work when the economy was stronger. Here in Michigan the market is saturated with contractors, supply is greater than demand, and it’s harder to sell an adequate number of jobs at higher margins.

I could easily waste a lot of money on printing and postage, so I’ve got to be smarter now and only mail to prospects that are more likely to buy from me.

I am developing a profile of my best customers based on information that I have in my data base. After I get done analyzing the data I already have I want to get more information from a list broker to find more distinguishing characteristics that my customers have in common.

After I finish that process I am going to buy a list of homeowners that fit specific criteria. I don’t think it would be a wise decision to mail to everyone in a subdivision because a lot of those people are not going to value what I have to offer.
 
#14 ·
There is a company called Melissa Data that can sell you a list according the criteria you are looking for. They can also take your customer list and append the demographics to the list.

I had them get me the demographics on a list of my customers about 7 years ago. I got a report on the basics that I described earlier; like age, income, etc.

I have a basic profile of my customers, and more specifically my customers that found me through direct mail. I want to get more information on their buying habits so I can develop a more precise profile. After I develop the profile I want to find prospects that match it and mail only to them.

I contacted Melissa Data and they sent me a list of the demographics I can choose from, and there are hundreds. I never knew they could collect so much information on people.

What I am looking for is information about their Buying Behavior, specifically about home improvements.

I’ve had success with Direct Mail in the past by mailing to neighborhoods that were all the same age and the roofs were wearing out. However the market has become unresponsive and the cost of direct mail leads has gone up. Not only that, but a lot of the people responding to my postcards were looking for low price, they were not a good fit for me. Somehow I need to narrow down the list so I am not wasting money trying to sell to people that are not a good prospect for me.
 
#15 ·
No doubt it's a very difficult thing. Unfortunately much of the success is in trying different parameters and tracking the results. Witht good tracking you eventually arrive at a great list. What I do wouldn't help you because we have very different businesses.

What size town do you live in? What about surrounding communities? If you are in a smaller type community the marketing dynamic is much different than say a major city of 500k.
 
#23 · (Edited)
Here's a link to a list of demographics they can provide.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spr...pXjN426dC0zbFpVM2NsVzlpcEVqRHJUa2p5dWc&gmrcpt

This is the information you can get with a basic bundle for a minimum of $325.

Enhancements Bundle
10 of our most popular consumer enhancements including: Estimated Household Income, Age in Two Year Increments, Gender, Presence of Children, Number of Adults, Marital Status, Home Owner/Renter, Length of Residence, Dwelling Type, and Credit Card;

Or you can place a custom order and choose from hundreds of enhancements.

You send them a list and they append whatever information you are looking for and they send the list back to.
 
#25 ·
Bluegrass Mailings, Lexington, KY. I'm sure you can find their website/contact data easily. Can pull whatever list you want around the country, do design/printing/mailing, EDDM, whatever you want dirt cheap, and faster/better/easier/cheaper than you can.

I've never had any luck with direct mail, but I'm going to try EDDM next. Haven't had any return on radio, newspaper, or anything else to speak of in damned near 3 years. When people decide not to spend, not much you can do.

For what it is worth, I think you need a geographical area that is not in butt-clinch mode. If you're around D.C. you're good. Lincoln NE probably sucks. Second, I believe it is more PERSONALITY of your target market than "demographics." And no one has a way to pull a list that says "this is going to ENTJ's" only.

If you can come up with demographic data that reflects a lot of the personality types that is your market, AND the geographical region is not in consumer panic, you could do all right. Otherwise, expect a low return. The more your service costs, the lower the return.
 
#26 ·
And no one has a way to pull a list that says "this is going to ENTJ's" only.
I don't know what that means.

Here is a list of the demographics that I am thinking about getting.

Discretionary Income Score
Working Woman
Mail Order Responder
Magazines/Home/Gardening
Community / Charities
Marital Status
Age
Length Of Residence

They can give me this information on people that have already bought from me and I can try to see what they have in common. Then I'll find people on my prospect list that have the same characteristics.
 
#27 ·
"ENTJ" is just a short-hand way of describing one of the 16 personality types on a Myer-Briggs personality analysis, and I was just using it as an example. M-B test measures 4 personality major traits, with 2 choices on each trait. For example, Extrovert (E) and Introvert (I).

One isn't just E or I - you are E or I to whatever extent. For example, someone who is just a little "I" may exhibit behavior similiar to someone who is just a little bit "E" in some situations. But someone who is strongly "I" is probably uncomfortable in situations where they need to be very outgoing or at big parties, etc. For example, most sales people probably need to be extroverts. But a few very successful sales people might be introverts - but the type of product or service they sell and HOW they sell ii will probably be very different from most extroverts.

But the 4 measurements together, with 2 choices each, and you have 2 to the fourth power (2 x 2 x 2 x 2), or 16 personality types. What makes each type tick is different, and how each best perceives information is different. For example, accountants and engineers may not be interested in a lot of small talk and pretty brochures with meaningless catch-phrases. They usually want hard data, written/numeric/graphs/detailed samples showing how something works. You may need to persuade them you are an expert in your field, and if you are a "good ol' boy" who likes to wing it, don't expect to close many of these type prospects.

On the other hand, if you have someone who is a "big picture kind of guy/girl," if you use the same approach as for an accountant, the prospect will likely perceive you as cold (they need small talk, "how's the family and weather" sort of stuff) and eyes will glaze over 5 seconds into you explaining your super-duper spreadsheet that proves beyond any doubt that YOUR product is superior to all others.

This is a tangent to the thread, but if you are going to be a professional sales/marketing person, you need to study the topic if you really want to be professional.

How does this relate to mailing list? Well, no one can pull a list for "ENTJ's" or any other personality types. But maybe you can find demographic clues to help. If you find you sell to a lot of engineers, maybe you do well with the former example above. Pull a mailing list of engineers, etc., in certain neighborhoods with income over $X and houses more than Y years old.

Personally, I think it is pretty hard to get a "personality profile" list unless you are selling a pretty specific product or service aimed for those people. If you are a painter or build decks, you're product is pretty general - can you ID the type person who wants what you do?

Good luck!
 
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