Mail Print's Blog | Innovation Delivered

Database marketing is a powerful tool for any business.  Retailers and restaurants can use databases to attract more customers to their stores.  Service businesses can bring in more clients.  Perhaps the most powerful aspect of database marketing is its ability to keep current customers and draw in customers who are similar to your established client base. 

The Prospect

 You need to find the people most likely to respond to your marketing.  Your best mailing list is automatically your current customers.  They are more likely than anyone to respond because they already know and like your business. 

 Your customer list is also useful because you can use it to identify key characteristics of your client base.  Knowing this information, you can buy lists of people with shared characteristics.  They will be more likely than the average person to be interested in your service.

 The Offer

 Your promotion will only be successful if your offer is something the recipients want or need.  Think from their perspective.  Don’t try to change their habits.  Often the best offers involve a company’s most popular items or services.  You want a high response rate.  Don’t worry about ticket price or what specific goods or services are purchased.  As long as people are responding, your offer is successful. 

 You don’t need as strong an offer to get responses from your current customers as you do for new ones.  Current clients are much more easily convinced to reply.

 The time limit of your offer is also important.  It should last for a few weeks.  If it’s too short, people will miss the period.  But don’t make it too long, either, because then you lose the sense of urgency that you want the offer to create. 

 The Special Event

 Special events are a great way to pull in business.  You can use any holiday, even obscure ones like Secretary’s Day or your clients’ individual birthdays and anniversaries.  Birthdays work very well because they are personal, and it shows the customer that you value their patronage. 

 Any excuse to promote something new is a viable reason to have a special event.  Use any excuse to let your customers know that you would like to see them again.

 The Vehicle

The form in which your message comes can greatly influence its results.  Direct mail is the best choice for database marketing.  And quality four-color postcards are usually a good choice because of their low cost. 

 Make sure your message is clear and to-the-point.  Don’t expect your clients to work hard, or at all, to understand your message – they won’t.  And make the message appeal to the client’s point of view.  Remember that clients are thinking “what’s in it for me?”

 Internal Communication

 Your employees must know about your direct mail offers and special events.  Get your employees involved in the promotion, and give them recognition when a goal is reached.  The more involved your employees are in a promotion, the more likely it is to succeed.

 Tracking Results

 You must track the results of all your marketing efforts.  If you aren’t tracking, then you’re just walking blind.  And don’t just track costs.  Track the profits!  Marketing is all about ROI – Return on Investment.  Find out which efforts work and which don’t.  Then weed out the ineffective ones and keep at it with what works.  Continually try new things in addition to your proven strategies, and when you find something better, stick with it.