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The need for clean data in direct mail
To ensure direct mail campaigns are as successful as possible, you need to work with the best available data. Many direct marketers quickly find their databases out of date, which diminishes the effectiveness of their efforts. Poor data raises costs for businesses, often leaving marketers with less money to launch campaigns, according to Trivia Marketing. Address correction and verification can improve the deliverability of your mailing efforts.
How much are marketers spending on direct mail data right now? Citing research from the Winterberry Group, Direct Marketing News reported that U.S. companies will spend $11.5 billion on marketing data in 2015. While email data spending increased 35 percent and display marketing rose 21 percent, direct mail still commands the bulk of data spending with more than $9 billion by itself. Marketers are still utilizing direct mail, but it's crucial to have the right mailing information. Long-time customers may move or data can be corrupted as a result of human error. One accidental change within your database can prevent a direct mail piece from reaching the intended recipient.
Why is accurate data so important?
Data-driven marketing is taking off in nearly every industry. Although Internet advertising allows companies to significantly expand their reach, the emphasis has largely been on getting to know your customers on a more personal level. Email marketers can encounter problems when customer contact information is out of date, and the same is true for direct mail campaigns. Targeting messages to a specific audience will become even more important in the near future.
Direct mail marketers need to put data protocols in place to ensure contact information isn't decaying over time. In addition, you have to be sure that records for individual customers aren't getting duplicated because this can result in the same person receiving multiple copies of the same mailing, which isn't a good use of your marketing budget.
How to clean up your mailing list
Keeping accurate data ensures you can use the same list longer. It's important to update transactional data as often as possible. Every time a customer purchases, you need to add this to your records so they don't receive a promotion for the same product they already bought, iMedia Connection stated. Direct mail can be a highly personalized channel, but your records need to reflect customer interactions. It will make clients feel like you know them.
Have customers responded to previous campaigns? It's crucial to track this information to find the best ways to market to clients in the future. Direct mail marketers can implement campaign-specific phone numbers or URLs to determine how many recipients are engaging with the materials.
Address correction is one of the most important steps in keeping data up to date. Campaigns will be far less effective if they don't reach the right people's mailboxes. This can reduce bad data and human errors, which allows you to make the most of your direct mail budget.
