No More Junk Mail: How to Improve Your Direct Mail List

The direct marketing formula has evolved from mass marketing to a targeted marketing approach. With physical mail, this is no different. The last thing you want is for your mailer to feel like “junk mail” to your recipient. The key to effectively reaching and engaging your audience is a clean and accurate direct mail list.

Your mailing list is your most valuable mail campaign asset. Use the following five strategies to improve your direct mail list, limit budget waste, drive a higher response rate, and boost overall program performance.

Understanding the Importance of Your Direct Mail List

When we asked consumers why they dislike receiving direct mail advertisements, 39% said, “The mail I get is not relevant to my life, needs, or interests; it feels impersonal.”

Your direct mail list is more than just a collection of names and addresses—it’s a powerful tool that can make or break the success of your direct marketing efforts. Relevance matters. We have found that it can influence direct mail response rates by as much as 70%. A well-maintained list not only ensures that your mail reaches the right audience but also helps you build stronger relationships with your customers.

5 Tips for Improving Your Direct Mail List

1. Understand Your Audience

Before you send out a single piece of mail, you need to know exactly who you’re trying to reach. Audience segments based on demographics, psychographics, purchasing history, recent activity, or any other relevant criteria allow you to create buyer personas for your ideal audience. This focused strategy not only boosts interaction rates but also lessens the chance of your mail being viewed as junk.

2. Clean Up Your Database

Regularly update your CRM and first-party data to remove outdated information. Not only will this assist you in cutting down printing and postage expenses, but it will also guarantee that your message is delivered to the correct recipients.

Comb your contacts for address changes, remove duplicates, and scrub out any entries that have opted out of mail communications. This will ensure your marketing mail is more likely to reach an interested party, not an empty house or a frustrated recipient.

3. Sharpen Your Models

Rather than spend precious advertising dollars on an audience who might be interested, the wealth of online and offline consumer data available today allows you to identify those who will be interested. Targeted mailing lists specifically aimed at your ideal prospects will yield increased response rates and improve the ROI of your direct mail campaign.

Predictive modeling is a process that leverages customer insights and data science to ensure your mailing list is stacked with your ideal prospects. To improve your models, be extra selective with your audience.

First, build your look-alike models to reach your desired outcome, i.e., response rate vs. CPA vs. LTV. These variables are established by LTV and purchase history data, and consumers are categorized on responsiveness based on a positive conversion history from previous direct mail campaigns, making it easy for you to designate the “tire-kickers” from the genuine buyers.

Then, continue to tighten your variable ranges based on your buyer personas. Narrow in on your target audience’s household income, net worth, and age. These may seem like obvious data points, but they are often set too broadly.

4. Refine Your Merge Process

Direct mail list building starts with your first-party data. This can be stored in various database software, such as CRM, Marketing Automation Point of Sale, or Email Marketing platforms. Once exported, it becomes a goulash of data fields, columns, and formats. Prospecting data lists are then onboarded and combined with your first-party data.

The mail management process of sorting, converting, and pairing all the data sources to produce one unique record for each consumer on your list is called merge-purge, and it is extensive. To improve your merge process, investigate your data-matching logic.

Identify your obvious duplicate records first, then loosen up your match-code logic to find any doubles that were missed. Deviate from traditional deduping (last name and address) to a match-code approach (limited number of characters from last name and address). This will catch duplicates for any records that include spelling errors and other minor mistakes that may have been hidden from the match code.

5. Ensure Mail Deliverability

There is nothing worse than wasting your budget on a mail piece that is undeliverable, poorly targeted, or duplicated. A clean and reliable list equals less returned mail. In addition to working with your mail partner to ensure your package is designed and produced to meet USPS regulatory and processing standards, you can also scrub your mailing list for gender convert targeting and geographic targeting to conserve costs and boost responses.

• Gender convert targeting. If your product resonates best with one sex, remove the others from the list. For example, a female-focused brand could remove males from the same household. This will reduce duplicate mailers and ensure your piece lands in the hands of the most relevant consumer.
• Geographic targeting. Prospects with similar characteristics tend to live in the same neighborhoods. Therefore, some zip codes, postal routes, cities, or states may be more responsive to your mailer than others. If you have a geographic area with a history of low response, limit or remove that section from your list.

Why Quality Matters Over Quantity

Building a smaller but more engaged direct mail list is far more valuable than reaching a large number of disinterested recipients. It’s tempting to think that more mail equals more visibility. However, with a focus on quality over quantity, you can improve the ROI of your direct mail campaigns and drive better results for your business. Craft high-quality, relevant pieces for a well-defined audience, and you’ll see better engagement without overwhelming mailboxes.

Timing Matters Too

The top reason consumers dislike receiving direct mail? They get too much.

Strategically timing your mail can also prevent it from being perceived as irrelevant. Avoid peak times for junk mail, such as the holiday season, and look for opportunities when your message is more likely to be noticed.

While consistency is essential, the ideal direct mail frequency varies depending on the strategy, brand, product or service, and market. The best way to test the number of touches that are best for your audience is to test.

_______

Effective direct mail campaigns are built on the foundation of clean mail files. By focusing on your audience, personalizing content, prioritizing quality, and leveraging technology, you can unjunk your mail and ensure your marketing messages are received, valued, and acted upon.

Let’s make junk mail a thing of the past! Contact SeQuel to learn how to improve your direct mail list and optimize your direct marketing strategy.

Excerpts of this article were originally published on Brand United.