Creating a direct mail campaign – why your data is important

If your mailing list isn’t current you could face some embarrassing implications to your marketing campaign not to mention loss of investment. How do you expect to get your predicted response rates if you don’t check your data regularly? With seven thousand people moving home each day it’s easy to see how your carefully prepared material can end up in the wrong hands and straight into the recycling.

If it isn’t already, your mailing list should be the most valuable part of your direct mail campaign, the reason why you have created a marketing campaign around this mailshot is because of the information this list holds, you know to whom and why you are sending out your mailshot. A carefully crafted and maintained list will help you target specific consumer groups using the right marketing collateral. In turn, getting your message onto the doormats of up to 27 million homes throughout the UK and target a wealth of potential new customers.

Create confidence in your data by reading our tips on how to maintain your mailing list below:

• Capture the information that is most valuable to you
  Think about what data will be important before you begin building your list, do you just want to capture the basic customer details – address, email, telephone number or do you want to add extra information about their personal preferences and lifestyle – age, gender etc.
• Maintain your data
  Don’t assume that your data will be current for each campaign, as we mention above people move and circumstances change each day. Keeping your list clean and relevant will make sure you don’t have any negative responses (including a persons right to stop receiving direct marketing) and minimise loss of investment.
• Segment your database
  This will enable you to send targeted messages to a specific customer base, e.g. if you want to target people living in a specific area close to an outlet that sells your product.
• Use your database
  Make sure you spend time maintaining and monitoring your customer base, doing this will help measure your ROI effectively. Used correctly your database will build better relationships with your customer base by giving them what they want.

Make your database an effective and a vital part of your strategy, use it to increase your customer satisfaction with your brand and increase your sales, Pepper Managing Director, Jude Whitford firmly believes that “Data is at the heart of successful communications”. Find out how we can help to ensure that your data is managed correctly, create prospect pools, perform analysis, cleanse and profile your data.

Contact Lucy, our Business Development Manager on 0845 0 60 30 50 or email hello@pepper.co.uk for a free data health check report.  

Here’s a great infographic we created highlighting some other areas worth considering:

Further reading: Arrange a free data health check with Pepper

Tell us what you think @PepperComms how much do you love your data?

Related: free data health check, direct mail services