ListAbility's Direct Marketing Blog

Market directly to adult children of your Assisted Living Prospects

Contact people who influence their parents' decision to move to assisted living

Is it time for my parents to move out of their house into a safer living environment? How can I spend time with them and provide assistance when they live so far away? Should I relocate them so they are closer to where I live?

These are questions asked by many adults with aging parents. These same adult children have a major influence in the decision making process about when and where their senior parents move. Without question, these are the people that assisted living communities want to talk to.

Now you can market to just the adults in your marketing area who have living elderly parents with the financial resources to move into your assisted living facility.

A direct mail campaign with a targeted mailing list of people in your area who can influence their parents can be one of your most effective tools.

Mailings to these qualified prospects will understandably yield better results than simply peppering the middle aged market.

Imagine the effectiveness of sending your marketing material to adults in your area with elderly parents who are homeowners and have a net worth of $1MM or more.

These are probably the best assisted living prospecting leads that you can hope for.

You can even turn this around and send your brochure to seniors all across the country that have family close to your assisted living facility.

ListAbility’s Intergenerational Family Mailing List provides these unique opportunities for marketing to adult children of elderly parents – wherever they live in the US.

ListAbility has the expertise to guide you through the process of obtaining a highly targeted mailing, telemarketing or email list.

A better mail list will pay dividends with the savings you garner with reduced printing and postage – to say nothing of getting noticed by the right people!

Direct Mail is Still a Powerhouse to Find New College Students

College marketing campaigns are becoming more important in the quest to attract new, non-traditional students in today’s competitive landscape.

Direct mail marketing is an excellent way for acquiring new students for higher education classrooms. This is particularly effective when reaching out into the community to market to adult learners, bringing in new people to your programs and filling classrooms.

Proactively reaching out to people enables you to catch their attention and refer them over to your web site or social media to learn more.

Your approach to choosing who should receive your information depends on the education programs you are promoting.

Recommended Direct Marketing Steps for Night School, Continuing Education, Community Enrichment and Other General Adult Educational Programs

The first step will be to determine WHERE you want to mail.

Some schools will pick out the areas where they currently have the highest concentration of students. Others will target areas where they want to grow visibility. Select zip codes or postal carrier routes which are smaller. Maybe a distance or drive-time radius would work for you.

The next step will be to choose WHO you want to mail to. Two different approaches are commonly used.

1. Select a demographic target – such as age, income, gender or marital status
2. Blanket the community – mail to all households in your target geography

Direct marketing gives you power to target people based on their unique demographics. These can include education level, occupation, age, marital status, interests and many other attributes. It is a proven marketing channel for attracting new students.

You can always decide to split your target audience to test which segments respond best, and what type of mail piece (brochure, catalog, post card) works best for your student marketing.

This is a good time to reach outside your existing student data base to inform people about the programs you offer.

ListAbility has the expertise to guide you through the process of obtaining a highly targeted mailing or email list. A better list will pay dividends when getting your school noticed by the right people. In addition, accurate lists will garner savings with reduced printing and postage costs.

Use Direct Mail Marketing to promote your swimming pool business

Don't be left high and dry, this is the time to be marketing to swimming pool owners

Spring is in full swing in many parts of the country and just around the corner for other areas. People are starting to think of summer fun. If you want the lucrative business of opening pools and maintaining them for the season, NOW is the time to start signing up homeowners with pools.

Most broadcast and print media are out of reach for the smaller pool companies. Even if your company has a large marketing budget, TV, newspapers and radio are reaching out to too broad an audience. Smart marketers want to direct their advertising dollars to homeowners with swimming pools who are going to need their services!

Direct mail marketing will put your message in the hands of the people most likely to want to buy from you.

The key is the mailing list. Take a look at ListAbility’s Swimming Pool Owners Mailing List as an example of how you can actually target your mailing to just the people you can expect to be your best prospects.

First you need to determine where you want to travel to service your customers and select a list within that area. It might be a group of towns, a couple counties, or even a radius distance from your business office or storefront.

Homeowners in single family homes are the most popular target market, but quite a few pool owners have a 2 or 3 family home. You might consider adding in those people as well.

Depending on your promotion and price point, consider specifying a minimum home market value or income so you don’t mail to people who probably can’t afford your services.

Pool owners with children could be your target market if you want to promote pool accessories such as slides or motion detectors. If you are offering environmentally friendly services, target people with an interest in Green Living.

While the list is important in getting your message to the right people, you want to be sure that your mail piece is pleasing to the eye, well written and relays the benefits of your service. You want to include a call to action that will give your prospect a reason to pick up the phone or get on their computer to get in touch with you.

ListAbility is a mailing list broker with the expertise and quality data to guide you through the process of obtaining a highly targeted mailing, telemarketing or email list. A better list will pay dividends with the savings you garner in printing and postage – to say nothing of getting noticed by the right people!

Cost Effective Targeted Direct Mail versus Every Door Direct Mail

The postal service is creating buzz and excitement with their Every Door Direct Mail ads on TV.

No list! Drop your mail off at the post office! What could be easier?

The reality isn’t quite that simple. The mail piece has to fit their specification of a flat; you calculate the quantities and bundle into packages of 100. If you are mailing to 5 towns, you will have to take your mail  to each of the 5 post offices, which could end up taking an entire day!

But the cost savings is there, right? Only 14½ cents per piece for postage! You can go onto the map at the postal website and pick out the carrier routes you think you want to deliver to, and it will go to every single address.

What if every single person isn’t a potential customer?

If you are an Ice Cream Stand, Pizza or take-out Chinese restaurant, by all means, get your menu and coupons out to everyone! What about more specialized businesses? Renters and Condominium owners may not be good targets for your landscaping business. A high end jewelry store might not want traffic from lower and middle income households.

Mailing to everyone, when only some are qualified can actually limit your reach. You will be spending money on postage and printing for people whom you are fairly sure will never buy your product. Even worse, they may waste your sales people’s valuable time.

Here is an example I came across the other day when an agency asked about a mailing for their client who is a pediatrician: The doctor had seen the ads on TV and asked about the Every Door Direct Mail program to help build his business.

We ran the numbers and found there were about 41,000 households in his service area of 5 towns on the south shore of Boston.

Using a targeted mailing list, we discovered that only 15,340 of the 41,000 households have children. To further target the mailing list, we took a look at some additional qualifiers. The practice would rather have younger children, and families with an income that would be more comfortable paying mdical bills.

5,212 families ended up on the qualified mailing list using the selections:  Children Age 0-12 and Household Income of $40K+

Additional qualifiers could include Length of Residence or Number of Children. You could also specify that the piece be addressed to the women (where present).

A better mailing list will pay dividends by helping you go get noticed by the right people!

ListAbility is a mailing list broker with the expertise and quality data to guide you through the process of obtaining a highly targeted mailing, telemarketing or email list. A better list will pay dividends with the savings you garner in printing and postage – to say nothing of getting noticed by the right people!

Direct Mail Advertising continues to be a powerful marketing channel

Many people would be surprised to read that the US Postal Service ended their fiscal year 2011 with a volume increase of 2 billion pieces of standard class mail. This 2.6% increase comes in spite of the barrage of negative media coverage. Standard mail is the primary mail service for Direct Mail Advertisers.

                  The Direct Marketing Association’s Statistical Fact Book states that
                     US marketers send over 90 billion pieces of direct mail per year!

What does this mean? The volume increase sends a clear message:

                                              Direct Mail Marketing still works!

My advice to Marketers, especially younger marketers, is to incorporate a multi-channel strategy when developing their marketing programs. And that should include direct mail.

When planning a direct mail campaign, there are many options to consider. Some methods are enduring, and have been used for many years by the best direct marketers in the world.

Here are some considerations to keep in mind:

• A strong offer or promotion is probably the most important element for all direct mail advertising campaigns.

• Select an updated and accurate mailing list that has been targeted to recipients considered most likely to respond positively to your offer.

• Consider making your promotion time sensitive to generate urgency.

• Testimonials or a guarantee can be effective, depending on your product.

• Copy and graphics focusing on the people you are sending to can increase results exponentially and easily justify the cost of using multiple versions. For example, use a different message for young adults than you do for seniors. Ask your printer about “variable print capabilities”.

• The use of Digital Printing can bring increased capabilities for personalization. These can include PURLS (Personalized URLs) which set up individual web pages for your prospects to key in, and QR Codes (Quick Response) that can be read by a smart phone to link to a special marketing page on the web.

• Postage is a large part of any direct mailing job.  Make sure your mail list is certified and processed to get the highest postal discounts for automation.

• Consult your mail shop when you design the physical aspect of your mail piece. Something as simple as a flap folded in the wrong direction could cause problems with the automated machines, which could cause delays and cost money.

• Coding records and setting up tracking metrics so response and conversion rates can be done accurately

• Testing – Try a couple different offers and mail pieces to see what works best for you. This will help the success for your future direct marketing campaigns. 

ListAbility is a premier mailing list company. Our dedicated List Professionals can help guide you through the process of obtaining a highly targeted mailing lists, telemarketing list or email list. A better list will pay dividends with higher response rates, savings in printing and postage costs – to say nothing of getting noticed by the right people!  

Small businesses increased their customer base in 2011

Seventy nine percent of small businesses surveyed increased the number of customers that they worked with last year. Not surprisingly, 71% also reported increased revenues.

Are you working with more customers than you were a year ago?

Are you getting your fair share of new clients? These companies didn't get stuck only marketing to that same old company list. They are reaching out and converting new prospects using a media mix that includes targeted prospect lists and inbound marketing channels.

The Netherlands based company VistPrint N.V. conducts a quarterly survey for companies with 10 or fewer employees. More than 1900 responded with these findings that they are reporting.

How are they finding these new customers?

While tried and true “word of mouth” is still the favorite, a successful business knows that can’t rely solely on this good will method.

Many of the micro businesses surveyed stated that Direct Mail Marketing would continue to play an important role in their marketing plan for 2012, along with growing interest in internet and social media.

Direct Mail Marketing is a proven and very effective way to communicate with new prospects. It allows for tightly controlled budgets with accountability, which can be very important to companies without massive advertising and marketing budgets. Direct Mail Lists can be tightly targeted – so postage and printing are only spent for the best prospects, those who are likely to be interested in your products and services.

Whether you are selling to the business or consumer marketplaces, ListAbility is a mailing list provider that can help you reach out to more qualified prospects with your direct marketing programs. As a qualified list broker, they can research just the right business mailing list or consumer mailing list to target your direct marketing campaign.  

3 tips to suds up your car wash business with direct mail promotions

You have invested in a great business, one that has the potential to engage every driver that takes pride in the appearance of their vehicle.

But you still need to attract the drivers’ attention and give them a reason to stop in. Rather than doing an ad campaign that you hope is all things to all people, consider this: 

Direct mail presents the ideal marketing strategy to put your message right into the homes of the people you want to target.

Here are some suggestions to bring new customers into your business using direct mail campaigns.

1.  Present your message to people who will be most likely to respond. Today, more than ever, there are many choices when selecting a mailing list. Here are some examples :

• Birthday – Run a promotion around a person’s birthday. This is a great way to target monthly mailings.
• Auto model year – Do you see more clients that have newer cars? You can send your information out to more people with cars the same age.
• Auto type – With today’s variable print, you can put a picture of the type of car people own right on you postcard or brochure.

2.  Decide which type of "special" you want to offer

• Big Discount for your first visit
• Buy one-Get One Free
• Discounted coupon book or passport

3.  Use the advertising style that you think will best fit to your offer and target demographic

• Whimsical: Joke about looking good or attracting attention with your shiny clean car
• Respect: Maintain the respect of your business colleagues, neighbors, friends and family
• Practical: Keeping dirt, dust and salt off your vehicle will help it last longer with a higher resale value.

ListAbility’s mailing lists can help many industries, including car washes, find new prospects to grow their business. In addition to the standard consumer demographic selects, such as age and income, ListAbility’s Automotive Masterfile Mailing List and Happy Birthday Promotions data bases are 2 more examples of our mail lists that will help you save money. Target your direct marketing campaign to people who are most likely to respond to your product or service!

Direct Mail works great when marketing to Business Owners at home

Direct Mail has and continues to generate excellent response and conversion rates when used for selling products and services directly to business owners at their home address.

There are several big advantages to this strategy. First, the vast majority of business owners are very busy at their place of work. The constant barrage or distractions at the office can make it very hard for a business owner to take the necessary time to review your offer. Second, many offices have gatekeepers that prevent communications to the business owners, including direct mail. These issues are eliminated when you mail to business owners at home.

These busy entrepreneurs are prime candidates for both business and consumer related offers.

For business offers, make sure to write your copy as if you were a business owner. What would motivate a business owner to purchase your product or service? Would buying this ultimately save money, and therefore increase profits? If you understand the motivation that drives purchases by business owners than you can have great success with your direct mail campaigns.    

For consumer services and products, offers such as vacations, gifts for family, friends and employees, sports and concert events, self improvement, insurance and investments are just some of the many offers that work great when using a business owners at home mailing list.

So, the next time your marketing plan includes targeting business owners, consider ListAbility’s Business Owners at Home Address Mailing List. You will have access to over 8.9 million business owners, plus many selects to customize to your specific requirements.    

ListAbility is a mailing list broker with the expertise to direct you to the right consumer or business mailing list.

Create Excitement Marketing to Early Tech Adapters

You know who they are… The first ones that have to have that techno-gadget. They have waited in line and paid dearly to be the first. Then they do it again when the next thing comes out.

How does knowing who they are help you in marketing? The folks with the smart phone, tablets and notebooks want new ways to utilize this cool technology. They are the ones that will scan the QR Codes (Quick Response), also known as two-dimensional bar codes, on your direct mail piece to find out more about your offer and product.

Marketing to this savvy market doesn’t need to be all about email or texting, which leave fleeting impressions and are gone if you catch them at the wrong moment. Direct mail – a letter, post card or brochure can be held on to untill they have time to scan your QR code or type in your PURL (Personalized URL).

Get a mailing list of these Early Tech Adapters

ListAbility can help you get direct mail lists to contact these, “gotta-get-it-first” folks for your mail campaign.  Add in specifications for age, income, gender, children along with other criteria to really focus in on the people who will be the most interested in what you are selling.

ListAbility is a mailing list broker with the expertise and quality data to guide you through the process of obtaining a highly targeted mailing, telemarketing or email list. A better list will pay dividends with the savings you garner in printing and postage – to say nothing of getting noticed by the right people!

Printers: generate revenue by proposing new prospect mailings to clients

The past several years has seen a contraction in the printing industry.  As a result, many printing companies decided to add mail services for their clients, either in-house or contracted.

Mail can provide an important revenue stream for the print industry

Over and over we hear owners of printing companies say: “Over the past several years, my clients have been supplying their own mailing list. We just do the mailing”. It’s true, when budgets got tight, many companies started to focus only on their in-house data. By now, some of those customer lists are getting pretty tired and the effectiveness could be falling (commonly called list fatigue).

Before your mail clients simply decide to stop mailing all together (and you lose both the print and mail-related revenues), make suggestions to improve results.

Be proactive: make suggestions for mail campaigns to target NEW prospects

Prospecting campaigns can be planned around specific groups based on economic and demographic targets. Going beyond that, there are many possibilities for special interests, spending habits, political, charitable donors, automotive, home and mortgage, and so much more.

How about proposing birthday promotion mail campaigns to your client?

Everyone loves a birthday present and this can be a terrific way to build a monthly program for just about any type of client. Present this to restaurants, car washes, salons or just about any consumer services company.

Are you working with any insurance companies?

Suggest that they start mailing to prospects just before their car insurance is set to renew. Same thing will work with homeowner policies.

Are clients telling you that they are going to put more of their marketing budget on some of the newer online mediums?

With the right targeting, direct mail can actually support these mediums. One example would be mailing to people with a lot of friends on Facebook with a special offer if they visit their page.

ListAbility’s professional Mailing List Brokers can help you with direct mail promotion ideas that you can use to propose new projects to your existing clients and new prospects. Our marketing lists are highly accurate and we have the technology to easily explore various strategies for targeting. Get in touch today at 866-446-2055 or info@listability.com