At the eigth annual MeritDirect Business Mailer’s Co-op and Interactive Marketing Conference, Bill Singleton, manager of analytical services at Naperville, Ill.-based database marketing and consulting firm The Allant Group, presented, “Nuts and Bolts of B-to-B Mail: 10 Common but Unwritten (and Unmentioned) Mistakes.” Here are three tips he suggests to give your next B-to-B campaign a better chance of success.
1. Check data for gaps and aging. Is information accurate, current and entered in the proper field? Singleton also suggests suppressing nonbuyers who are competitors, miscoded consumers, prisons or business complaint addresses.
2. Use the right address for your customers. Singleton cautions: “Many customer order-processing systems can record mail-to, ship-to, sold-to and bill-to addresses. Decide which type of contact you want to reach in a company. If you want to add shipping addresses to your mailing, make sure they are really valid, mailable addresses by running them through postal hygiene software or your service bureau.” He also advises making it a requirement to link different account elements to help prevent listing multiple addresses for the same customer.
3. Test your response system. Singleton says companies should ensure “the response system your customer is supposed to use actually works.” This includes testing toll-free numbers and landing pages for customer service, quality and accuracy.
1. Check data for gaps and aging. Is information accurate, current and entered in the proper field? Singleton also suggests suppressing nonbuyers who are competitors, miscoded consumers, prisons or business complaint addresses.
2. Use the right address for your customers. Singleton cautions: “Many customer order-processing systems can record mail-to, ship-to, sold-to and bill-to addresses. Decide which type of contact you want to reach in a company. If you want to add shipping addresses to your mailing, make sure they are really valid, mailable addresses by running them through postal hygiene software or your service bureau.” He also advises making it a requirement to link different account elements to help prevent listing multiple addresses for the same customer.
3. Test your response system. Singleton says companies should ensure “the response system your customer is supposed to use actually works.” This includes testing toll-free numbers and landing pages for customer service, quality and accuracy.




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