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Whether publishing a magazine, marketing a product or operating a nonprofit organization, successful direct marketers all share one thing in common: a base of multisourced customers. Add them together and you have an incredibly large and robust universe to draw from.
Why then do so many marketers find it difficult to profitably acquire new customers from outside lists, particularly from outside their own market category? Simply put, they don’t dig deep enough.
One glance at a datacard and many a good list gets passed over. But in today’s data-driven world, marketers have more information at hand than can fit on a datacard. And too many list marketers take the easy way out and show the same information as they always have, or as everyone else does.
To make outside lists work, marketers need to go beyond the datacard.
List managers and list owners increasingly are working with brokers and their mailers to customize data sets and provide tailored solutions not listed on the datacard. You just need to ask the right questions. For example: Can you provide subscribers who paid with the order or who renewed on the first effort? Surely these names will perform differently than “bill me’s” or subscribers who finally renewed on the sixth effort.
Not all data are created equal. A donor who gives $50 each year during annual fund drives is different than one who gave the minimum amount for an umbrella premium or because of a catastrophic event. A catalog shopper who orders large-ticket items several times a year is different than a customer who ordered a designer suit one month and returned it the next. Yet both customers may be classified as $150 buyers.
Look for types of actions that mirror those you want your prospects to take. Information such as lifetime, last or largest purchase can help you home in on a universe that will be more successful for you. Managers who’ve changed with the times are intimate with their clients’ customers and know the types of behind-the-scenes data that can be used to target them. Inquire about selections that may not be listed on the datacard or readily available.
When even the most creative approach to straight selections doesn’t help pinpoint the formula for success, try modeling. Large, multititle, multiproduct marketers like Meredith, Reader’s Digest and Rodale can create customized models that can make marginal lists perform better, allow mailers to go deeper into good lists and yield significant new universes for mailers who may not be able to test with straight selects.
Why then do so many marketers find it difficult to profitably acquire new customers from outside lists, particularly from outside their own market category? Simply put, they don’t dig deep enough.
One glance at a datacard and many a good list gets passed over. But in today’s data-driven world, marketers have more information at hand than can fit on a datacard. And too many list marketers take the easy way out and show the same information as they always have, or as everyone else does.
To make outside lists work, marketers need to go beyond the datacard.
List managers and list owners increasingly are working with brokers and their mailers to customize data sets and provide tailored solutions not listed on the datacard. You just need to ask the right questions. For example: Can you provide subscribers who paid with the order or who renewed on the first effort? Surely these names will perform differently than “bill me’s” or subscribers who finally renewed on the sixth effort.
Not all data are created equal. A donor who gives $50 each year during annual fund drives is different than one who gave the minimum amount for an umbrella premium or because of a catastrophic event. A catalog shopper who orders large-ticket items several times a year is different than a customer who ordered a designer suit one month and returned it the next. Yet both customers may be classified as $150 buyers.
Look for types of actions that mirror those you want your prospects to take. Information such as lifetime, last or largest purchase can help you home in on a universe that will be more successful for you. Managers who’ve changed with the times are intimate with their clients’ customers and know the types of behind-the-scenes data that can be used to target them. Inquire about selections that may not be listed on the datacard or readily available.
When even the most creative approach to straight selections doesn’t help pinpoint the formula for success, try modeling. Large, multititle, multiproduct marketers like Meredith, Reader’s Digest and Rodale can create customized models that can make marginal lists perform better, allow mailers to go deeper into good lists and yield significant new universes for mailers who may not be able to test with straight selects.
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