Marketing strategy week 2: Market Analysis

MarketingFile - Marketing strategy week 2: Market Analysis
MarketingFile - Marketing strategy week 2: Market Analysis

We started our 4 week help guide to outline the key areas to producing a successful marketing strategy, last week we focused on customer and prospect data. This week we are looking into analysing your market and current situation. A vital part of a marketing strategy is to identify where in the market your company is positioned compared to its competitors to determine your customers (if you don’t know this already), find appropriate pricing and discover competitor vulnerabilities. To do this carrying out a full market analysis will provide your business with the information required to move your strategy to the next stage.

Target Market

Part of the market analysis has already been covered in last week’s blog, however the market analysis takes the data you’ve segmented to identify a target market. Your audience will depend on a two key factors; your overall strategic objectives and who your product or service is targeted at. 

Understanding your perspective customers buying habits and interests will give you an idea if you’re product or service is going to meet their needs and expectations. Carrying out market research at this stage (if budgets allow) will also determine their reaction to the introduction of your product or service.

Competitor Analysis

This is a vital area to thoroughly research and investigate into, why will depend on your marketing strategy and its objectives. For example if you are introducing a new product or service your business will need to identify if you’re competitors have a similar offering and then establish if there is enough market share for your new entry. 

However, if your strategy is aimed at growing your existing business in its existing market you should already have competitor information available. If you are entering a new market completely then extensive research will be required to understand whether it is a financially viable option. 

Identifying your competitors marketing strategies will also give insight into what marketing approach has been successful, or strategies which possibly haven’t been attempted or tried before.

Your own SWOT Analysis

As part of your market analysis you also need to evaluate your own strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities. To identify the possibility of entering a new market, introducing a new product or diversifying your offering, your marketing strategy will investigate into your current situation and evaluate if there is the opportunity to progress with your strategy. 

Part of your research already carried out on your customers will be used in your SWOT analysis, additional research will be required to produce an honest picture of your situation. Once this is achieved (and you might not 100% like the results) this is when you decide if any changes need to be made to your overall strategic objectives. 

Now you have two key aspects of your marketing strategy complete, next week will focus on the marketing plan and implementing your strategy. 

If you would like expert marketing advice please contact our sales team on 0845 345 7755.

Marketing Strategy and Data

MarketingFile - Marketing Strategy and Data
MarketingFile - Marketing Strategy and Data

Over the next 4 weeks we will be covering the 4 key areas of producing a successful marketing strategy. These are just the basics to follow as all businesses will have their own objectives and goals to achieve which will all be different. Our first week focuses on the key essential to any strategy – your data. Customer or prospect, both are equally important to grow your business either to increase sales, registrations, engagement or raise awareness. 

The very first step which we are not focusing on, as this will be personal to your own business, are your objectives for the strategy. The ultimate question of “what do we want to achieve?” is vital to produce a focused strategic marketing plan.

So for this first week we are focusing on data and showing you how important it is to your marketing strategy.

Week 1: How important is data?

Well very…

A fundamental requirement of any successful marketing strategy is to know who your customers are to understand their needs and behaviours. This is rule number one, you could have the best product or service in your market but if you don’t know who is going to use it you will not know where to advertise or who to target. 

With this is mind, ask yourself “how much do you know about your existing customers?”

Do you know:

  • Where they live or are located?
  • Their lifestyle habits or business type?
  • How many children or employees do they have?
  • What they purchase and how often? 
  • How do they like to be contacted?

Fairly simple questions any business should be aware of when analysing their customer database. Once you know this information you will have taken a big step to achieving your successful marketing strategy. 

Unfortunately for your business to be successful in this area takes time, knowledge and communication. Keeping regular contact with your customers will tell you a lot about them and give you the ability to segment them into their own niche areas, making your job of marketing to them a lot simpler.

Segmenting your customers

To segment your customer data for targeting purposes you will need to find similar characteristics to group your customers together. For example, this might be by the products or services they purchase, so you can target with specific product messages, alternatively you might group them on their financial situation or lifestyle habits. 

How you segment will depend on what you want to achieve (going back to your objectives), so to increase sales in a specific area you would identify customers whose characteristics fit into the product area you are promoting, then send specific targeted messages.

Prospect Data

Once you have clearly identified who your customers are and their characteristics this then gives you the knowledge to duplicate this across a prospect marketing list. 

Whether you are looking for business or consumer data, you will be able to select prospect data based on specific characteristics, such as business size, turnover, location or if you use consumer data then financial situation, number of children in household or what car they drive. 

Buying in similar data to your existing customer database works well when increasing your sales, however if you are expanding into new markets testing small volumes of prospect data can help you identify new customer segments who respond to your marketing activity.

Get in touch

Call our expert team on 0845 345 7755 for your free prospect data count or start your search now by answering our homepage questions.

Data Protection: are you in the clear?

MarketingFile - Data Protection: are you in the clear?
MarketingFile - Data Protection: are you in the clear?

As a DMA member (Direct Marketing Association) we have to ensure all of our consumer and business data we hold in house and our partners we work with, who provide us with their prospect marketing lists, adhere to certain legislation’s in order to keep our DMA membership. Below are two of the key regulations we obey: 

The Data Protection Act 1998, any business within the UK who handles or collects consumer data has to, by law, company with the below key point: 

  • Protect the right of the consumer
  • Any data collected in sourced fairly and lawfully
  • All data is kept accurate and up to date 

Further information on the DPA can be found here.

As part of the EU and DMA we also have to abide by the legislation’s set out in The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR). This relates to any electronic direct marketing communications carried out to consumer data including:

  • Email and SMS marketing
  • Telemarketing 
  • Viral marketing
  • Fax marketing
  • Automated calls

The basic outline of the PECR is any electronic direct marketing must comply with this particular set of rules, even if you don’t know the individual’s name. However, as soon as you find out the consumer’s name you then also have to adhere to the Data Protection Act. 

For more information on the current PECR click here.

Why have we bought this up?

There is change on the horizon and it will affect any business using or handling personal consumer data within the EU. Although no need to panic – you still have to time to get your data and process in order to comply! 

The European Commission is planning to combine data protection to a single law – the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which is planning to come into force 2017/2018.

What does this mean for your business?

The new regulation came about due to globalisation and technological developments such as social media and cloud computing, which were not covered by the DPA or PECR. This will now be covered and extended to all foreign companies using, processing or storing EU resident’s data. 

The final details are yet to be confirmed by the European Parliament, European Commission and the Council of Ministers, however the sanctions have already been announced of fines up to €1M or 2% of annual worldwide turnover.

Next steps

Most importantly if your business collects, stores or processes consumer data there will be a list of regulations your business has to abide by such as:

  • A clear privacy policy with proof of valid consent
  • Ability to provide copies of personal data
  • Capacity to delete personal data if required to (right to be forgotten)

As the GDPR has not yet been finalised we highly recommend your policies, procedures and technological capabilities are tested to ensure they will be able to comply with the new regulations when they are enforced.

Check your data at the same time

Use our FREE data audit to find out if any of your customers have moved house or changed their telephone number. We will verify your customer database against a range of checks so you can discover how much of your data needs updating all for FREE. 

Clean up your customer database with our free data audit today by calling the team on 0845 345 7755.

How to choose your marketing list

MarketingFile - How to choose your marketing list
MarketingFile - How to choose your marketing list

When deciding to carry out prospect marketing there are a few factors you should have already considered; who is your target audience, how are you going to contact them, what is your budget and the return you need to achieve.

MarketingFile have been helping businesses of all sizes with all budgets select their prospect marketing lists most suitable for their direct marketing campaign, so to help even more businesses we’ve rounded up our top tips for your next prospect list.

The importance of the list

In terms of the factors effecting response, the quality of the list is by far the most important element of any direct marketing campaign and even more important than the offer, the creative, the timing or the response device. The amount of time you’ll put into creative should be replicated in the targeting – or your efforts will be wasted on the wrong people.

Who should you be targeting?

In simple terms you should target the people who are likely to be the most profitable to you.

Profile your most profitable customers

Analyse your sales figures by customer and identify the most profitable. This is the audience using your products or services the most, therefore is a good example to base your prospect list on. Often you will find 80% of profits come from just 20% of your customers, known as the 80:20 rule.

Building a profile based on existing clients is an excellent method for growing your customer base and increase revenue. For business customers look at business activity, geographic location, business size, HQ or branch, job-title and any other factors relating to your specific product or service. For consumers consider their age, sex, marital status, where they live, number of children, occupation and income, home and car ownership. If you don’t have this data available you can be creative, keep reading!

You may find that there is more than one definable group of “best” customers – possibly buying different products or services from you. In this case you may need a different offer, creative or response mechanism for each group.

New company or new product launch?

You may not have relevant sales data to analyse, although you should have an idea who your product or services are meant for (and should be carried out in the market research stages). Alternatively you can test the response to your best guess with a small volume campaign before committing to a major investment.

Choosing which database to use

MarketingFile.com gives you access to a huge range of databases. Deciding which one to use is key to the success of your campaign. Consider also that your best prospects may be found in more than one of the databases. In this case you may choose to test the responsiveness and return on investment of each in turn.

Business databases

Deciding which business list to use will depend on your targeting, if you need businesses within a particular industry such as education or health care use a Business Sector List. Or if you are targeting a specific job title such as Marketing Managers then use one of our job function lists. Alternatively, if you’re targeting a large number of businesses in a specific area then consider a general business list.

If we have the job title you want then great, but don’t dismiss the companies where we only have a default contact. These are usually smaller businesses where the default contact is the boss and is actually the person you need to reach for most purchasing decisions.

Choosing a consumer database

To target particular types of people identify what characteristics or behaviours of existing customers you believe are your most profitable. This may be their financial status, what they are interested in, how many children in the household, what car they drive and much more. If you are not sure then use our general lifestyle database and base on a specific area.

Include the targets you want - exclude those you don’t want

Your targeting should also account for the people you don’t want to reach, this is sometimes more difficult to define but will reduce waste and save you money.

Look down the list of selection criteria and whenever you catch yourself saying things like “age doesn’t seem to matter” or “we don’t have any data on company size” pause a moment to consider if you shouldn’t be including or excluding at least some names based on this criteria, e.g.

  • When using an international database – exclude the countries you don’t / can’t service
  • When using a general business database – you may wish to exclude public sector organizations or not-for-profits
  • Large businesses and small businesses have different buying scenarios – you are unlikely to appeal to both with the same offering
  • When mailing consumers – you may wish to exclude the very old

Geographic selections

Think about the area(s) you wish to target. Is it a territory that is defined by postcodes or counties? Is it defined by the distance your customer is prepared to travel to your premises? Is it a number of scattered postcode sectors?

If you don’t have detailed knowledge of your target area you are best to limit your geo-selections to include only a single type of selection, e.g. postcode, town or county.

If using distance from a point, bear in mind that this is “as the crow flies” and may include areas you do not immediately consider to be “close” to you, e.g. Kent is only a few miles from Essex geographically but is rendered distant in travel terms.

Be creative - think laterally

Some of the most successful campaigns result from slightly lateral thinking at the targeting stage. For example;

  • Selecting people who have credit cards is an obvious choice if that is your preferred payment method, but it is also a good indication that they take credit and may be swayed by an attractive credit deal
  • If your product is a people carrier, consider targeting families with large numbers of children (rather than the usual conquest make/model combinations)

What if your count is too big?

You can always reduce your count by taking only records 1 to 1000 but far better to select the 1st 1000 by company size (or whatever is relevant), or even to focus your targeting on a smaller defined target group. If you want to target segments individually, select a number of postcodes at a time. This way you can be sure there are no duplicates in later purchases, even if the list is updated.

Telephone numbers

Not all our records have telephone numbers on. In fact we are deleting numbers every day as more people opt out of receiving telemarketing calls by joining the Telephone Preference Service. So if you want to ensure all your prospect records have telephone numbers, make sure you select “has tel no” as a selection criteria and then buy the “tel no” field at output.

Single-use or multiple-use?

MarketingFile.com enables you to purchase data for either single-use or multiple-use. The actual license-to-use varies slightly depending on the list-owner who supplies the data (please read the license terms carefully).

Why buy for multiple-use?

To increase your response rate we would recommend you consider contacting each prospect more than once – and at least quarterly. Increasing the frequency normally increases the response rate and many experienced direct marketers prefer to contact prospects monthly.

It makes sense to contact your prospects frequently for the same reasons that companies run a long series of advertisements in magazines or on television. Prospects often require multiple exposures to an advertisement before they buy. Making multiple contacts increases your prospects’ awareness of your company and also increases the likelihood that your message is received at a time that your products or services are needed by them.

Talk to us today about your marketing list needs and who you are targeting and we will find the perfect list for you!

Call our team on 0845 345 7755 or email [email protected] with your request, alternatively, use our search tool on our homepage!

The New MarketingFile

MarketingFile - The New MarketingFile
MarketingFile - The New MarketingFile

We’re very excited to introduce our fresh new look with a brand new logo and website! Since MarketingFile began we have been through two major re-brands to ensure we evolve with our customers and the, bringing you the best of direct marketing in one place.

When originally deciding to re-brand our website our creative team and sales teams all had an input as to how the website should function and its offering to our clients. Using all the feedback and contribution from everyone within MarketingFile the final design was focused on showing you which marketing list best suits your needs depending on your campaign.

As we hold over 20 different business and consumer marketing lists in-house, we found through our research customers wanted an insight into which list best suits their campaigns. With this in mind we developed our list finding tool which displays what prospect marketing list will match your requirements with three simple questions:

1.   Who are you targeting?
2.   How are you going to contact them?
3.   What type of audience is your campaign targeted at?

By answering these three easy questions we’re able to reveal the marketing lists which best fit your campaign. You can either get in touch with our team to run through your results by calling us on 0845 345 7755, chatting to us online, or receive a targeted data count by entering your postcode.

New look… Same high quality data

We may have a new logo and website but we are still partnered with industry leading list owners to bring you the UK’s widest online selection of business and consumer data, available in one place. Take a look at who we work with.

Whichever way you want to get in touch with us, our friendly and helpful team are at the end of the phone, online or via email ready to find your perfect direct marketing list.

Why the change?

There can be a few reasons why companies decide to re-brand, introducing a new product, entering a new market, merger or acquisition or competitive influences. However, the most popular (and why we moved forward with our new design) is to keep the brand fresh and in our customer’s mind!

Nearly all companies will go through a re-brand at some stage of their existence, even the well-known ones keep up with the times and go through continuous re-branding such as Coca Cola. However, it can go very right or disastrously wrong, an article in the Entrepreneur highlights 8 must-follow rules when re-branding.

If you’re thinking of a re-brand for your business, take the time to consider if it’s the right time and will your customers react positively? Another consideration is to spend the time and money investing in a good design. As the Entrepreneur mentioned not everyone gets it right, streamlining your website or ordering service to make the customer journey easy to follow and resulting in giving the customer what they are looking for should increase your sales.

Where to go from here?

The re-brand for MarketingFile means we provide an accessible and user friendly website to promote our products and services, acting as our shop window. We’ve put all of our marketing lists on show for all of our existing and future customers to search through to find their perfect prospect list.

Click here to start your search with our three simple questions, or if you want to speak to one of the team call us on 0845 345 7755 and we can start your prospect search today!

When should your email go out?

MarketingFile - When should your email go out?
MarketingFile - When should your email go out?

Do you know when the right time is to send out your email campaign?

With the way people are accessing their emails changing, whether it’s at a desktop or laptop, smartphone, tablet even a smart TV, it is even more vital to send your message at the right time.

Although there is no one size fits all technique to timing your email campaign, there is a rule of thumb we tend to apply to our own email broadcasts. We’ll discuss this below and give you hints and tips for you to try with your own email campaigns.

However, why should we all be working towards improving your email timing? The main goal is to sell more, more often. You may have other objectives, such as brand awareness/growth but it always boils down to increase revenue and sales. To do this you want to beat competition and get your message in front of theirs, we’ve already written another blog on how to make your email stand out: blog post, but for this post we are focusing on the timing of your campaign.

Improving your timings will involve a lot of testing, different messages at different times to a range of audiences. And this is will be constant throughout your email broadcasting days…..

We have never been as connected to the online world as we are today, checking emails throughout the day and night, on our range of devices. So calculating the right time might not be an exact science but a lucky guess, and you guessed it….lots of testing.

Your audience

Understanding your audience is the most important aspect for your email campaign success. Gathering information should be relatively easy as your recipients will either be existing customers so you will have their shopping habits and preferences, or if you are prospecting buy additional information about them to understand their needs

Friday to Monday

We recently tested a B2B email campaign on a Friday and Monday with the results showing a better open rate from the Friday send with 66% of those opened within the first three hours, however from the Monday broadcast 78% where opened within the same timeframe. So although the Friday received a higher open rate, the Monday broadcast received a better immediate response rate.

However, both broadcasts had the same click through rate (77%) within the first three hours, this could indicate the people more likely to interact with your email will be one of the first ones to open it. This is vital information when following up on your warm leads, you want to contact these people as soon as possible!

Early mornings

Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, we all fall victim to checking our smartphones on the commute to work. Meaning it’s a perfect opportunity for people to check out your email that’s just landed in their inbox!

Lunch time rush

The middle of the day is always a popular time to send marketing messages, check your own inbox and you will see how many messages from the same company are sent to you at the same time of day. We carried out a recent survey on all of our inbox and saw 54% of marketing emails being received between 11am and 2pm, the remaining 46% being spread over the hours of 7am and 6pm.

Personalisation

In this instance we don’t actually mean the content of your email but the time it can be sent. This relates back to the top point, knowing your customers. If you know when your user is active on your website, or what time they signed up, this is when your emails to them should be going out. Analyse your data and look for trends of “live time” and test accordingly!

Saved items

If your website allows shoppers to save their items to a basket to come back to at a later date this is perfect opportunity to follow up with a well-timed email. Depending on the value of the item will determine the time that should be left. Roughly an hour for small ticket items and 24-48 hours for large value items as it gives time to discuss with managers or departments to agree.

Ok, so they are just some of our points to help you decide when your email campaigns should be going out. The more you can test and adjust your timings the more likely you will naturally see an increase in open and click rates and hopefully an increase in revenue!

Spring clean your data

MarketingFile - Spring clean your data
MarketingFile - Spring clean your data

How often do you refresh your customer, or prospect, databases? Every month, quarter, 6 months, a year, or so long ago you can’t remember the last time it was carried out?

If it’s the latter then keep reading, if your business makes a conscious effort to regularly update your databases then you should also keep reading as there are some fun facts on how you can do this cheaper and hassle free!

It is a very simple fact that people’s situations change over time, therefore the data you initially collected when your customer registered with you could now well and truly be out of date. For example, did you know roughly 11% of the UK population moves home every year and 17% of people change their email address annually? This naturally happens through people changing their job, so if you’re targeting businesses cleaning up your data is vital in retaining or acquiring new customers.

Does your database consist of elderly people? If so this is another factor to consider when carrying out direct marketing on your database. Cleaning your lists against deceased registers will help save the distress to relatives it can cause and the cost of marketing to them.

So how often should you refresh?

Our advice from working with over 15 different list owners and 150,000 clients in the last 15 years is to ideally refresh your database every time you want to use it. This will depend on how you manage your database, if you are active in contacting your customers to regularly update their details then you may only have to refresh if you are planning a large campaign which involves historical customers.

On the other hand, if you’re not as strict with keeping your database up to date then carrying out a refresh every 5-6 months will not only enhance your customer information but increase the chance of retention and improved revenue. The size of your database will also warrant regular file updates, as a rule of thumb the larger the file the more changes are likely to occur.

Regularly cleaning your databases will enhance your customer and prospect information allowing you to increase sales conversions and revenue. Keeping in contact with your customers with informative information that is relevant to them will keep your audience engaged and therefore more likely to use your services as your business in the forefront of their mind.

Data cleansing not only allows your business to stay in touch with customers who may have moved or changed telephone numbers but also identify people who registered their details with the telephone preference service to not receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls. This is a legal requirement for all businesses to adhere to and could cost your company dearly if you are found to be calling TPS registered numbers.

Our data cleaning service covers a wide range of data checks such as; address quality, NCOA (national change of address) update, mailing suppression file, Smartlink address forwarding service, tele-numbering checks and most importantly the TPS.

To clean up your databases or purchase a new prospect file, get in touch with our team today on 0845 345 7755 who will be able to assist you with your requirements, alternatively chat to us online using our online-chat facility at the bottom right of your screen.

How to boost sales on a budget

MarketingFile - How to boost sales on a budget
MarketingFile - How to boost sales on a budget

You may or may not have a limited marketing budget, either way you still want to grow your business. What can be done to ensure your business develops, growing your client base and increasing your turnover on a monthly basis on a limited budget?

Growing your business will consist of a mixture of retention and acquisition techniques, yet to do both on a budget requires skill and dedication.

Some people tend to do business with others they either like, trust or have a loyal relationship with. And as we know, it also costs considerably more to get a new client than it does to keep an existing one. So what should you do to promote your business on a budget that won’t break the bank yet can still be effective and fruitful?

MarketingFile have produced the following 10 tips which may just make the difference you are looking for.

Know where to sell

Define your market. It’s no use trying to appeal to a market sector that doesn’t want to buy from you. Who is a typical client and what service does he/she want? Get the demographic right.

Companies such as MarketingFile will be able to offer a profiling service where they can determine the common characteristics of your customers, and offer you marketing data that matches that criteria. Always keep a close eye on your competitors. Always know your strengths and play to them. And always stay up to date with trends in your industry in general.

Know what to sell

Are you sure the product or service you are offering is the product your clients want to buy? Or can you make adjustments that would expand your market reach? Is your product the right price for the market you are targeting?

Write a simple marketing strategy

This may even be a ‘back of a postcard’ scribble that says “make 5 cold calls every day”. Once you have done this, stick to it and keep sticking to it. Write down all the things you can do to market your business and form a monthly strategy. Look at the strategy regularly and if you can improve on it do so, whilst increasing your marketing budget in proportion to your profits and growth plan.

Everyone can be a salesman

Your budget is tight, set incentives for your employees and clients, rewarding them if they bring business to your company. Use word of mouth to your advantage – everyone knows somebody who may want to do business with you.

Clients can be your opportunity to reach a wider audience without breaking the bank. Offer your clients a referral fee, like MarketingFile, for every new client they bring to your business. The cost of this can be significantly less than paying for advertising.

Know your audience and keep in touch

Build a database from your current client base and add your new registrations/customers to it, collecting important and useful information for future marketing messages. Understanding your audience will allow you to send regular and relevant communications offering products or services they are more likely to purchase.

Use a multi-channel approach

Although you’re limited to a certain budget, your marketing communication strategy should include a number of marketing channels. Keep it cheap but relevant, if you’re B2C use Facebook and Twitter, grow your social media audience, the channel is free but remember to allocate internal resources to managing social media accounts – it can be a full time job! If you’re B2B LinkedIn is a fantastic channel to target businesses suitable for your products. And don’t miss out on the opportunities PR can bring, its free but time consuming to write an enticing piece for media to pick up.

Other channels such as email and direct mail can be carried out relatively cheaply, for example we can send a colour A4 letter from 53p per letter, including the data record, printing and postage.

An integrated approach using a mix of them all gives your message the best chance of getting through. Keep at it. Target the same audience repeatedly through multiple channels to maximise exposure and drive the message home.

Test, test and test again

Experiment with different messages & methods so you know which works best for each part of your business, and which ones particular customers respond to. Measurement is vital – gather as much response data as possible to measure your campaign. Email marketing is brilliant for measurement. The ability to track click through’s, email open rates and to test everything from responses to subject lines gives you great ammunition for next time.

Join a business-networking organisation

Build a network of business referrers that can recommend you and potentially bring new business to your door. There are many such organisations around, such as: Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, Business Link and so on. Such business networks are relatively cheap to join and can quickly return high levels of good quality work.

The ’80:20 rule’

80% of your business will come from 20% of your clients. This is true. Don’t be afraid to lose or ditch a bad client that doesn’t pay well or won’t deliver. It means you now have room to bring on board new and more profitable business to take the place of the culled clients. It is possible to work too hard for too little return.

Don’t leave home without them

Never, ever, ever leave home without your business cards. Be prepared to give them out, even at social functions (but do tread the fine line between being a business bore and an innovative networker). Those cards that you are given, write on the back where you met that person, and a memorable point about them. Put them onto your new customer database, and remember to follow them up.

Four basic direct mail tips

MarketingFile - Four basic direct mail tips
MarketingFile - Four basic direct mail tips

One of the deciding factors to why your business should use direct mail as part of your communication strategy is the customer is going to look at it, even if it is to dismiss it. In that 5-10 second glimpse you have the opportunity to grab their attention and connect with them.

The type of direct mail you use, letters, postcards, brochures, invitations, leaflets etc. will determine the layout and content of the mail piece. However there four common features they should all include:

An attention grabbing headline

This needs to entice them to read more. Make it relevant to their needs, there is no point sending them a flyer on your latest offer of dog food if they don’t own a dog.

Tell them a bit about what you’re promoting

The content and offer will depend on your objectives, it may be an opportunity to reconnect with lapsed customers, promoting a new product or providing interesting content. Remember to make the offer inviting and again relevant to that customer.

Shout about your call to action

Your customer is still interested at this point so your call to action needs to be clear on what you want them to do next. Do you want them to contact you, are you going to call them, do they need to sign up online? Make it as easy as possible for them.

Don’t forget your details

If this is a reconnecting campaign then your companies contact details need to be prominent, it can be frustrating if you’re interested in a particular offer but don’t know how to contact the company!

If you design your mail piece with these four features in mind then you should be on to a winner, although remember the key point (mentioned a few times above) the message and offer needs to be relevant to your audience. This has a lot to do with your marketing list, whether it is your own customer database or a prospect list. Segmenting and targeting your campaign to an appropriate audience will help deliver a better ROI.

To find out how to cleanse your customer database and purchase similar prospect data get in touch with our team on 0845 345 7755 for an instant free no obligation quote.

How to find your prospects

MarketingFile - How to find your prospects
MarketingFile - How to find your prospects

You’ve planned your strategy, defined your end goal and when you want to achieve it by, you may have even decided which marketing channels you want to use. Next on your “to do list” is decide on how to find the perfect prospects for your campaign. When we say perfect prospects we mean the people/businesses most likely to respond to your marketing communications and take action in becoming a customer.

Expanding your reach to new customers is not an easy task, especially if you’re a new brand entering the market. You need to establish who your target market is and how to segment them, for example you may target businesses – which industry, a particular size, is your product or service limited to location or do you need to target specific job roles like IT or HR?

Depending on how you segment your products and services will then determine how to select prospect data. This will most likely be purchased from a data company, such as MarketingFile, as collecting data yourself can take a lot time, money and resources. Our recommend is to concentrate on both, purchase a prospect list (that best suits your needs) and at the same time work on those prospects and others, from natural traffic, becoming part of your customer database.

Knowing who your audience is

You know your products and services better than anyone, that’s why they’re yours! Analyse who your product or service is meant for, start off with whether its consumer or business – this will help determine which marketing list or company you should contact.

Whether you are targeting consumers or businesses, are you specifically looking for a particular family member or a contact within a business? If it’s a contact within a business consider contacting as many people as possible within the company to increase your chance of a high ROI. Only use this if your product or service is relevant to those people. Leading us on to our second point….

Is your message relevant?

Sending your message to 1million people is not cost effective (at all), segmenting and targeting your marketing messages to the right people will save you thousands of pounds, time and resources, therefore making your business more money!

When selecting your prospects ensure the message you’re sending them is not too specific that it only becomes relevant to a handful of them. You want to find a balance that will entice them to find out more but not alienate them if it’s not relevant to their needs or preferences.

Look into the past

If you are an established business with previous customer shopping habits then use this to your advantage. Analyse your internal data to determine how your current customers shop, when they purchase, what they are buying and how much are they spending. Don’t forget to look at the shoppers themselves, are they congregated to a location, of a certain age or gender, earn above or below a certain salary, have children or drive a certain make and model of vehicle.

By investigating your current shopper activity and profile you can use this when selecting a prospect marketing list, unless you are entering a new market or relatively new business (with none or little customer information) then make the most of the data you hold and base your prospect customers on what you know currently works for your products and services.

Choose the right list

You are now armed with sufficient information and data on the prospect data you would like to purchase, you now need to make a decision on where to buy this data from. We’ve previously written a few blogs on buying a prospect marketing list, but here the main points:

  1. Speak to a range of data companies to find the right prospect data for your campaigns, you might end up going with the first one you spoke to, but whether you’re shopping for data or a new TV it’s always best to shop around.
  2. Ask how the data has been collected, this will determine the accuracy and responsiveness, if the company uses competition surveys the accuracy can be vague, your messages will need to be prepared for this!
  3. Find out how often it is verified and refreshed, most lists are done on a monthly basis, giving you the opportunity to contact new prospects every month!
  4. Buy the data on the licence that suits your needs, if it is a one off campaign then single use is for you. However, if you plan on running a multi-channel/multi-contact campaign (as we recommend) then buy your data on a multiple use licence.

What do you expect?

Last but not least you need to make your expectations realistic, this relates back to your strategy setting and objectives for your campaign. Measuring the success of your campaign to prospect customers will depend on the goals you have set for yourself. Do not expect a majority of your prospect customers to respond to your communication, there is no “one size fits all” response rate so just remember to be realistic with your projections.