Analytics for Profiling and Modeling Targeted Lists for Direct Mail Campaigns

Your mailing list is critical to your mailing results. When you need to acquire new customers, purchasing a targeted mail list is the way to reach them. However, some lists are better than others. We talked about five types of prospecting lists in the last post; now, we will discuss analytics for profiling and modeling lists.

The better your list is targeted, the better your response rate will be.

• Descriptive Analytics: Is a profile that describes common attributes of your customers and helps to target, based on demographic lookalikes. The market penetration of each attribute shows the comparison between customers and overall population living in the same geo area, with the same attributes, where each element is examined separately. Basically, you will see who your best customers are and find prospects just like them.
• Predictive Analytics: Is a model that finds how two or more groups are similar or dissimilar. For example, buyers vs. non-buyers; or responders vs. non-responders. Then it assigns a score that represents a probability-to-act, based on the interaction of several attributes. That way, you can get a better idea of who buys what in order to find more people like them.

So why would you want to try one of these options? You can expect an improved response rate, more effective cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, and the ability to build better loyalty programs, because you understand people better. These processes help you identify prospects who "look like" your best customers.

Profiling allows you to profile your best customers (B2C or B2B) and find out what makes them different from others in your target market. You can target new prospects who are the most likely to respond, purchase, or renew, based on your customer data. You can gain precise information about your customers, based on the statistical analysis of key activities. Finally, you will understand the lifetime value of customers, including their probability to respond and purchase products, with a highly advanced model.

Predictive modeling is a process that analyzes the past and current activities or behaviors of two groups to improve future results. This is accomplished between the comparisons of two groups of data. The differences are assessed to identify whether a pattern exists and if it is likely to repeat itself. Scores can be applied to prospect data purchases, or to segment client data for marketing.

Both provide great opportunities for you to target and reach prospects who are more likely to be interested in what you are selling. This way, your offer resonates with them and compels action. This is another way to increase your ROI, as well as save money. You are mailing to only qualified people, so there are less pieces to print and mail. Keep in mind that your customer list is going to get the best response rates, but a highly targeted list like these will have higher response rates than an average purchase list.

Are you ready to profile and model your list?