The Secret To Direct Mail: Pick A List - Just Not Any List Though

A necessary part of running a business is advertising. You need to run advertising to bring in prospects, thus earning more money in your pockets. I mean, your ARE in business to make money right? Everybody wants to make money. On the same note, everybody hates to lose money. There are alot of mistakes that can be made in direct mail. You can have a terrible mailing package, your price can be too high-or too low, you can offer your products at the wrong time. But the worst thing is mailing to the wrong list. Poor list selection is the worst mistake you can make in direct mail.

How do you choose the right list?

First thing to consider in any-and every-marketing campaign is to identify your audience.
Who is your market? When you figure out that key component, you will be more prepared for your mailing. And when you are more prepared for your mailing, you will get a better response.

Now, anyone can put a direct mail piece together but when you don't know who your target market is, you definitely will not see any sales.

List research and selection is not glamorous by any means. It's the behind-the-scenes grind to figure out and specify the best list parameters. You can see your mailing go from no response to instant profit, just from the correct selection and the extra attention paid to your mailing list.

Now when you find a list broker, there are some questions you need to ask.

* Precisely who is the list audience made up of?
* Does the list include actual purchasers or merely inquirers?
* How old are the names on the list?
* How often is it updated?
* How often - and how recently - has the list been cleaned?

When you are purchasing names to sell products to, a key thing is to ask how recently the people on the list have made a purchase. Ask how often the list has been rented. The last thing that you want to do is get a list that has been rented too often and may hurt your mailing campaign due to fatigue. On the flip side, if a list has never been rented, it's probably because there's a good reason no one is using it.

You should also ask how many other mailers have tested the list. When you're testing in direct mail, it's usually 5,000 names. This, however, does not mean that you have to mail to all 5,000 names, but you may have to purchase them.

Ask the origin of the list. Some lists are excellent, but some are horrible. There are alot of horrible lists out there that people just throw together names from their phone book. You want to make sure that the list source is trustworthy.

The last thing you want to ask is how many people continued after their initial test. If there were continuous testing, that means the mailing drew a response and they mailed to it again. This means that they made money and it was worth the effort.

An excellent resources for investigating lists is the SRDS and you can find list brokers in the phone book in every major city. Just make sure that before you choose a broker, you ask tons of questions.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_M_Warner

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