To: Dr. Andrew Hardy, CEO

From: ky

Date: February 22, 2011

Re: New List Source for the Summer Catalog Mailing Memo

It has been brought to my attention in our weekly meeting that the children’s clothing (infant to age 13) catalog division has saturated the current mailing list. As of today, the catalog has been mailed to customers who were listed on the response list which is the direct mail buyers of similar products. So, I am embarrassed to say this but our department has exhausted the list choices, and now we are faced with the decision to go beyond the response lists and we must develop a new compiled list to test in the summer mailings. This list must be complete and ready to launch by May 31, 2011.

In our meeting, we decided to focus on the following areas to help develop and launch the new list for the summer mailings. The four areas are…learning about the demographics of our customers, the kinds of list that would be tested, how many list segments would be tested for the summer mailings, and can there be a list developed to include postal address as well as email address to execute a multichannel marketing campaign. The person to head this project is Fred Miller and his contact information is listed in the directory for all questions on this project.

CUSTOMER DEMOGRAPHICS

In developing a demographic profile, we will determine when and where advertising should be placed to achieve maximum results. In such cases, it is important that the advertising department get the most results for our money. So, careful research will be done to match the profile of the target market to the demographic profile of the advertising medium. This can be hard (and expensive) part in finding out who our customers really are. We feel that the demographic attributes are the following...education, income or wealth, occupation, family composition, buying preference, marital status, ethnicity, travel, employment status, head of household age, input name age, number of persons in household, owner or renter status, and bank cards in household. The data is compiled from public sources (Census Bureau or internet) and surveys or other self-reported sources. In establishing the target market, which is women from ages 27 to 65 or the Gen Y, Gen X and Boomers will be translated into an actual list or a set of lists that will be use to provide contact information for the direct marketing department (slideshare.net).

KINDS OF LIST & SEGMENTS TO TEST

In developing the kind of list to test, our divison has decided to use two types of list strategies. They are the renting mailing list from Infousa.com or Experian and self compiling from out special events data base. It is important to evaluate the productivity of the company who rents you the list. Our staff will review the response rate, revenue or profitability in relationship to the cost of the list because this can be very expensive and possibly disastrous for our bottom line (Hardy, 2010). But I feel that the best list for our company to investing the funds and time into is the self compiling or lead generated list. Lead Generating is when our division will set up their own activities to get the information that is needed for the target market. Gaining this type of primary data is essential because our company can control the type of information that is used on the list and questioning. Lead Generation can lead to great referrals and contact information. Testing the list is arguably the most important variable in direct mail and e-mail marketing (other strong candidates would be price, offer, format, sales appeals, and envelope teasers. In making the new direct marketing list more accurate and useful, I will use the same quantity of names for every list that is tested and all names that are tested are completely independent of the size of the total list. By taking a small segmentation and sample of the list to test in the market will eliminate time in making the selection and will not waste time and money on bad list (Hardy, 2010). Because our department wants to learn from each and every campaign we will want to identify a few lists where we can create test segments. One segment is both direct mail and email; another gets direct mail only; and the third gets email only.

MULTICHANNEL MARKETING CAMPAIGN
The big payoff will come from applying a multi-channel approach to new direct marketing campaign. It’s not just email. It’s not just direct mail. It’s the combination of these two channels that can take our marketing campaigns to the next level. Multiple touch points will increase the effectiveness of our message if you plan and execute properly. Our competitors who do this are finding significant lifts in response. As part of the multichannel marketing campaign, our staff will make sure the email arrives right after the direct mail piece is delivered, all email pieces will have an additional special offer, premium discount will be offer via email and mail if they order by a certain date for example a cataloger might offer a discount on items on a particular page and a direct mail piece will aggressively promote an online offer. Direct mail and email are very different communication channels, so your message and presentation will be different. We don’t have a control of our direct mail message, so we are going to pre-test some creative concepts in email. Testing print offers takes months of preparation and handling, not to mention significant expense. Our dead line is March 30th. Email testing will not be as scientific as other forms of testing, but you can get a quick read on what offers or creative approaches work.

The direct mail piece will include our company URL. For example: www.company.com/specials. I will make sure that the main offer is presented within the first one or two paragraphs and provide links directly to the appropriate place on your Web site. It is important to keep the paragraphs short and powerful.

CONCLUSION
This is where the rubber meets the road. How do you effectively combine your direct mail and email results? Some companies have very sophisticated tracking in place, and they are able to pull intelligent results out of their systems to perform the appropriate analysis. Our company does not have those systems or the talent pool, but there are still some things we can do. Tracking direct mail is easy. We already have the systems in place to track mail and phone orders from the direct mail campaign. If you have included a unique URL in your mailing piece, you’ll be able to track how many people went to your site to look at your offer. Our marketing department will feature a special promotion code in the direct mail pieces and ask for that code as the individual goes through online checkout. This allows them to associate online orders with a specific campaign. In conclusion, a team of six people will be assembled to research, develop and launch the new listing for summer mailings by May 31st. If you should have any additional questions, please call the team lead FM.

Sincerely,
ky