SMART BLAST

At Marketing Informatics, we start planning direct mail programs around two basic components that determine the ultimate success or failure of the project: the list and the offer.

Let’s talk list first. It’s vitally important to mail to the best selection of prospects you can reasonably obtain – and to as many of those target consumers as possible. Otherwise, you could be fishing in the wrong pond, which is an expensive and counterproductive thing to do.

But how do you know who actually needs to be on that mailing list?

A zillion ways exist to get lists, but to narrow your search, you have to know what your best prospects “look like” and exactly where they live. That’s where data analytics come in handy. The best mailing list alone, however, will not make your phone ring or your mailbox fill up unless it is united with an offer that is of value to your prospect.

And how do you know what they value? Sometimes it’s intuitive or you know from past experience. If that’s not the case, you can find out by doing market research. Research is the key to learning what really motivates your prospects.

Then you can intelligently craft an offer that really grabs their attention. Combine that with the right copy, appealing design and the most appropriate package, and NOW see what you’ve got: a list that scientifically stacks the odds to get responses and an offer grounded in research that is artfully presented to your prospect.

And yet, even with all of the above, nothing is certain. That’s why we recommend testing the key variables.

But that’s another story.