How to Choose An Effective Direct Mailing List

When it comes to marketing your business through print, direct mail is definitely a top way to go! But it’s just as important to make sure your promotional mailer is going to your target audience to attract and gain new customers. Here are our tips on how to create an effective direct mailing list for your business.

  1. Understand Your Target Audience
    It is a complete waste of time and money to send promotional pieces to an audience that has no interest in what you have to offer. Identify your ideal customers’ basic demographics such as gender, geography, income, age range, etc. Once you’ve identified your optimal audience you then have a basic understanding of your ideal customer. From there, you want to narrow it down even further to identify shopping trends, purchasing behaviors, everyday lifestyle routines and habits.
  2. Target Ideal Prospects
    Once you’ve identified all the details of your ideal prospects, you can then start to form a list of potential customers and leads. A thorough targeted direct mailing list is worth the expense as they are most likely to give you the best response rate and return for your investment; while creating the most loyal customers too. Avoid mass marketing as they are a waste of money, time, and don’t guarantee a return since many will not be interested in your products or services. Targeted mailing lists will specify your audience and pinpoint your best opportunities.
  3. 3. Mailing List Format
  4. The right mailing list will include your most valuable prospects and is crucial to the success of your direct mail marketing campaign. Here are the top three most popular options for mailing lists to choose from:
  5. • Specialty Lists – Allows you to specifically identify your ideal target market.
    • Custom Mailing Lists – Hand selects the customers that meet your needs and required criteria.
    • Cloned List – Finds customers that are similar to your current best customers.
  6. 4. Practical Planning
  7. It’s important that you are completely realistic when planning for what you want to achieve from your direct mail marketing campaign. Be sure that your goals are attainable so you’re not wasting your budget on a plan that won’t work.
  8. 5. Effectively Manage Your Budget
  9. Finding the right balance with your budget is crucial as you don’t want to overspend more than you need to or underspend where you don’t attain any results. Be sure to do your research before planning out a solid budget. A great place to start is looking into your industry average to see what other businesses have done before to get a solid idea of what will work for your campaign.
  10. 6. Internal or External
  11. Before deciding on a mailing list it’s critical to determine whether you want to take this on in-house or work with an external company that can handle it for you with expertise. Factor in whether your team can create attractive designs with compelling verbiage, cover the cost of equipment and mailing. Partnering with an external company can take the pressure off of doing it all yourself so you can focus on other aspects of your business.

At Image Cube, we are your ideal partner when it comes to creating direct mail pieces to attract new customers as well as providing target mailing lists to complete the project. Since 2004, we have worked with many businesses of all industries to assist in marketing their goods and services. Connect with our team of experts to learn more about how we can partner with you!



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