How to Take Your Direct Mail List Targeting to a New Level

Your direct mail list targeting is extremely important. The better you are able to target the right people, the better your response rate will be. There are some new technologies out there that can help you better define your targeting by adding attitudinal data. What is attitudinal data? It is the attitudes, preferences, motivations and beliefs that are behind the consumer decisions driving response. When you are able to add this to your list, you can really drive response.

Consider this, if you’re trying to drive donations or acquire new members, you will want to identify potential donors who are highly predisposed to your specific cause and likely to donate regularly. You can also find people who are attracted to your specific campaign message and have the highest propensity to respond. Just because two people might look the same based on demographics and behavior does not mean they are. Let’s say you have two people who live in the same neighborhood, drive the same type of car, are in the same income bracket and have kids under 10. Traditionally, these people are sent the same message and expected to respond the same way. However, consider that they are individuals and may not find the same creative attractive. They also do not share the same motivations, or like the same offers or causes.

Check out these list targeting options:

Standard List Rental

How it works:You already know your customers’ demo or behavioral profile, so you buy a list that matches that profile (Women aged 25-45 with children at home & HHI $80k+).

Why you’d use it: It’s cheaper, it’s simpler, and that really matters to you.

Syndicated Lifestyle Segments (e.g., Claritas, Mosaic)

How it works: You match your customer file to syndicated lifestyle segments to provide broad demo, behavioral, lifestyle and attitudinal profiles.

Why you’d use it: Superior to standard list rentals for most applications, and provides valuable profiling insights on your customers.

Standard Response Model

How it works:You match your customer file to a consumer database, and your analytics provider builds a custom response “look-alike” model to find consumers with similar characteristics to people who’ve responded in the past.

Why you’d use it: You want to reliably and consistently repeat your past success.

Custom Attitudinal Modeling (e.g., Twenty-Ten)

How it works: Matches your responder file to a custom consumer attitudes database and builds a customer hybrid attitudinal/behavioral model that identifies consumers most likely to have the attitudinal predisposition to respond to your ad.

Why you’d use it: You want to build on past successes and realize significant improvement in targeting accuracy.

The ability to differentiate between people and only send your mailer to the person most likely to donate or purchase from you will significantly increase your campaign response and ROI. The same thing applies if you are selling products or services.

One of the common misconceptions about data targeting is that it is expensive. When you consider the lift you can get with targeting accuracy that increases your results, you can find that it more than pays for itself. So whether you choose syndicated segments from Claritas, or purchase intent data from Experian, including this additional layer to your list creation will help you optimize targeting, increase campaign engagement and boost response.

Marketers have considered it hard to budget for new list testing. However, with the right vendors, you can try out altitudinal data with a test run at no cost. The typical response increase with custom attitudes in your direct mail targeting is 20% to 80%. Are you ready to get started?