If your business hires a mail list broker to assist with direct marketing campaign creation and management, you need to understand how to work well with them to maximize results. Follow these tips to create the best opportunity for responsive target market discovery.
Choose the Right Mail List Broker for You
All aspects of your direct mail and business email marketing efforts will work better in conjunction with a mail list broker you have a long-term professional relationship with. The best results come when the expertise of both entities meld together and strive for a common goal. In this article, the goal is finding your best target market who is most likely to respond favorably to your campaigns.
Before you worry about market demographics, financial goals, or design, you need to find the best expert for your needs. Besides competence, knowledge, and experience, a personable, professional attitude is ideal. Explore online reviews, ask them questions, and do as much research as possible before selecting the one your company will work with.
Outline Goals and Direct Marketing Plans
No progress toward audience discovery will happen until you clearly communicate what your goals are for the direct marketing campaigns. These could range from generating quick sales with a discount or special offer to long-term brand recognition techniques that will improve overall trustworthiness and positive reputation.
Each of these goals needs a different type of target market to be most successful. When your mailing company knows what you want, it can help you create the best lists for each plan.
Reveal Your Ideal and Actual Customer Demographics
Any company involved with business email marketing or postal direct marketing should have some idea what types of businesses or professionals would be best served by its products or services. Multiple target markets exist for almost any company.
For example, a company that sells construction equipment could target massive building firms to introduce themselves as a source of a new bulldozer fleet, while also sending marketing material to local contractors who may be looking for affordable parts.
Share Current Direct Mail Pieces and Campaigns
Discuss all current emails and print materials with the broker to make sure they are the best options for the type of response you want. They will work with you to analyze the data you collected about open rates and responses. This helps you determine what worked and what did not so future efforts can be more successful.
Some topics to discuss include how many offers to send, the frequency of mailings, more effective calls to action, and methods for improving reputation and trustworthiness in your chosen industry.
Not only will the representative from the mailing company use your data to formulate a better plan for the future, but they should also use their years of gathered resources and experience garnered from other clients to help. This type of professional relationship allows you to avoid efforts that will not pay off and save time on the way to profit.
Determine How Often You Should Mail
Some say your audience needs to see your offer three times before taking any action on it. Others say the number can be as high as eight to twelve. Work with your mail list broker to develop a plan for repeat direct mail or business email marketing. With so many companies advertising their offers these days, it is important to follow up your initial marketing burst with additional contacts to build trust and familiarity. However, the last thing you want to do is send out so many postcards or emails that your target market becomes annoyed with you.
Explore ROI and Cost Per Conversion Numbers
The direct sales or conversions you receive are important, but the return on investment and cost per conversion should be calculated to make sure you are getting the results that matter. This tests your mailing list to the ideal target market. If your ROI is too low, measures should be taken with your mailing company to change the next campaign’s results for the better. In this way, forging a professional relationship with the right mailing company can greatly increase the success of your company over time.
