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IN THIS ISSUE:
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FROM THE EDITOR
A super-size "thank you!" to the slender slice of Bulletin subscribers who responded to my last survey. The Bulletin mails to over 3,000 people and about 30 took the survey, representing just under 1%. You might consider that a pretty unscientific sample—and you’d be right. But, since the respondents match the profile of our readers pretty closely (that’s why I ask those "tell us about you and your business" questions) I feel safe drawing some general conclusions from this rather small sample group. Survey Sez... Biz Ain’t That Bad! I came up with my metrics for business health based on my experience when I owned a business. I asked about cash flow and collections, about marketing expenses, about personnel changes, and about entrepreneurial challenges. Here’s what I learned. Most of you are experiencing tight cash flow in some degree, but few of you are having difficulty collecting past-due accounts. That’s good—tight cash flow is to be expected in a growing business. When it comes to your marketing-related expenses, about half of you have experienced no change in spending in the last six months. Changes in personnel have been minimal for 50% of respondents, and moderate for another 35%. An overwhelming number of entrepreneurs who responded are spending more time working in your businesses, and finding it necessary to bring your sense of humor to work. These measures tell me: Sure, it’s rough sailing out there, but it hasn’t swamped your boats. Your Top Concerns I asked about your top concerns. You responded: Cash flow and capital is the key issue of concern. Tied for second place on your list of concerns are Business growth/expansion and Marketing and awareness. Under those, in descending order, you told me: Time management, General economic recovery, Competitors, and Clients’ unwillingness to spend. In second-to-last place were Workforce training, hiring, etc. tied with Taxes. And last on your list (This surprised me!) was Health insurance. Survey Have you used direct mail to promote your business? How'd it work out for you? If you’ve had an interesting experience with direct mail, e-mail me. I’ll share your "war stories" with Bulletin readers. TOOL BITS
Segmentation Unlocks the Power of Direct Mail
If you invest in marketing, you want results. More marketers are turning to direct mail for the precision it delivers when it comes to measuring response. The latest development in direct mail has been the increasing use of segmentation systems to match mail messages to their recipients more precisely, thus lifting response rates. The advertising messages that get results are those that are highly relevant to the people who receive them, offering solutions to the needs and desires they’re experiencing at the moment the mail hits their mailbox. One reason matching message to recipient has been growing in popularity is the increased availability of reasonable-cost short-run printing—right down to individual mail-piece variable printing that delivers on the promise of one-to-one marketing. In these pieces, as many as a dozen "zones" are customized based on data collected about each recipient. Those zones might contain words, graphics such as a signature, or even full-color photos. To get the benefit of this technology, marketers finesse the combination of words and images they choose to match the demographics and psychographics of each individual recipient. An auto dealership promoting a truck sale can reach retired deer hunters and Gen-X kayakers with very attractive full-color mailers personalized to fit very different lifestyles. Personalization of printed pieces (use of the recipient’s name or other specific information) is a logical extension of the time-honored technique of market segmentation. To use direct mail to maximum effectiveness, consider first applying segmentation—as in the auto dealership example—then personalizing the individual pieces to talk directly, "one to one", with your prospect. About segmentation systems
A handful of vendors offer segmentation systems that blend household expenditure data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and demographic information from the U.S. Census to assign households to unique clusters. Depending on the vendor you’ll find from 40 to 70 clusters with cheery names like "Billiards and Barstools", "Money and Brains", "Blue Blood Estates", and "Young Literati". Vendors of these systems include Claritas, MicroVision, Acxiom, and ESRI. Third Wave Research has been working with the same data sets for a decade, but has resisted the urge to compete in the “cluster model” arena. Instead, we focus on the benefits of customer profiling. We create customized prospecting programs, with segmentation based on the actual behavior of our clients’ customers, and projected onto our database of over 100 million residential households in the U.S.A. to create prospect lists. If I have one mantra in my marketing advice, it’s "Reach the right people and leaving the rest alone." The beauty of segmentation applied to direct mail is that it accomplishes this goal. Direct mail can be simple You don’t have to have an elaborate program in mind, or a big budget. Just about anybody can use direct mail profitably. Should you be using direct mail? It’s worth your while if:
I could go on—but instead, I’ll refer you to the resources listed here. Happy mailing! Resources "To Grow Your Business, Profile Your Customers" Market Research Tools "Turn up the volume with direct-mail advertising" "Drawing a line between personalization and privacy" "Your 'house list' is a precious vault of customer info" | |  | |
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