Boost Your Direct Mail Response Rates with Mapping Technology

On Superbowl Sunday, Domino's Pizza delivered more than 900,000 pizzas-and mapping technology helped. How do 60,000 pizza outlets serving 3 billion pizzas per year compete in an industry where reputations and dollars are dependent on "fast, hot and delivered to the door?" Global Positioning System (GPS) technology!

Here's how you can use this great invention to increase your direct mail results--even if you've only got one store with local customers.

GPS may be mapping from outer space, but desktop mapping technology can be a "weapon of mass destruction" for competitive marketers. With it, you can visualize your database information to see patterns that have a geographic component. For retailers and service businesses, that translates into "Which locations or neighborhoods am I best positioned in to serve my customers?"

Retailers typically serve a trade area of up to 10 miles. Service companies like to set up "routes" to maximize their travel time. By seeing a visual of your customer data, it's easy to see where you should bulk up your marketing efforts and where you should scale back--neighborhood by neighborhood--instead of by zip code, which is the way most companies think of their target area.

Rather than sending mail to "everyone in a 3-mile radius," marketers can use mapping to analyze demographic trade areas at a finer level, such as carrier routes, zip+4's or Census Block Groups, to monitor their return on investment. Eliminate underserved areas, and you'll decrease advertising costs and increase results!

Future mailings can suppress weaker or non-responsive neighborhoods and increase mailing quantity to "like" demographic areas, resulting in a mailer's dream: Fewer mail pieces, more results. You can even overlay demographic information, such as home value, income, business population, etc., onto these newly mapped areas for an additional layer of intelligence.

Competitive Analysis

Mapping is also a solution for competitive analysis. By plotting yours and the competition's store locations, then profiling the markets for age, income, home value, zip code penetration, etc., you'll find kernels of truth that can lead you to an offensive marketing strategy or better site selection.

Mapping can be a valuable tool even when the business's only marketing asset is a customer list of names and addresses without transaction (purchasing) information or anything else because critical geographical information can be appended and then analyzed. Franchisors and chain stores rely heavily on mapping technology to assign territories and drive customer traffic based on natural and man-made barriers (highways, rivers, bridges, etc.). Business marketers can improve "inquiry to closing" rates, plan sales calls more effectively, realign sales territories and measure sales force activities.

Mapping projects can be performed "in-house" with a relatively inexpensive software purchase of approximately $300-$400 or projects can be hired out for more sophisticated results that link back to spreadsheet or database information for ongoing analysis and can cost from $50 - $2,500. Whether your business delivers pizzas or manages a dealer network of 1,000 HVAC technicians, mapping technology can add a visual dimension to data analysis that is often more understandable than spreadsheets and graphs.

Lori Feldman is president of Aviva, a mailing list and database marketing and Internet consulting firm and an ACT! Software Certified Consultant. She is this year's Direct Marketer of the Year, awarded by the Direct Marketing Assn. of St. Louis. Reach her at http://www.aviva-aviva.com/mapping.html

---

Marketing to Hispanics/Latinos

A powerful consumer market with annual spending power exceeding $350... Read More

Make Your E-Mail Signature File WORK for You!

You're probably familiar with e-mail signature (or "sig") files -... Read More

Communication Breakdown - Dont Let It Happen To You

Do you have Communication breakdown?How are you communicating with your... Read More

Planning Your Postcard Marketing Campaign

Before you create your postcard, do a little planning. Ask... Read More

Marketing Through Associations

©2004 Jeffrey DobkinIf you're in direct marketing, you're continually looking... Read More

Five Marketing Tips to Double Profits

It's a startling fact: almost all entrepreneurs aren't marketing their... Read More

Inform vs. Excite

excite v. 1 a: to call to activity b: to... Read More

25 Ways To Get More Business

Special Requirements for Reprint: we ask only that... Read More

Customizing Booklets By Industry or By Company

Customizing booklets can be done by industry or by company."110... Read More

Radio Ads That Get Results

Radio advertising can be a small business's best friend. It's... Read More

A Perfect Partnership for Business

Too often we small business owners get caught up in... Read More

Sales Resistance on the Rise

Have you noticed it? More and more marketing campaigns are... Read More

Developing A Focused Marketing Strategy

You want all of your marketing messages to have a... Read More

Getting Your Marketing Message Across with CD Business Cards

CD Business cards allows any type of business that dynamic... Read More

Client or Customer? There Really Is A Difference

Some people use the words "client" and "customer" interchangeably or... Read More

The Biggest Problem With Your Marketing Is...?

What is the biggest problem most marketers have? Who knows.... Read More

19 Ways To Attract Higher Paying Clients

Some people have little difficulty attracting and maintaining clients who... Read More

Telemarketers Dont Like Them? Heres An Idea For Ya!

Telemarketers... ooohhh... I'll bet we've all got a nice story... Read More

The Top 10 Ways to Market your Business or Professional Practice Without Networking

While focused, strategic networking is usually the most efficient way... Read More

Limited Time Only (Shh! Its A Secret)

Under normal circumstances, you'd shout it from the rooftops. After... Read More

Promotional Magnets: Promotion that Sticks

Some people are happy with just a business card. For... Read More

The Advantage and Consequences of New Economy Marketing

Some of the research that has been done today gives... Read More

10 Packaging Tips That Will Make Consumers Buy Your Product

The customer is king/queen. We have all heard this mantra.... Read More

Six Ways to Boost Response on Your Surveys and Gain More Useful Information

So... you spend time and effort putting together a survey,... Read More

Should You Clap For Your Customers?

Does it make sense to clap for your customers? It... Read More

Business Leads

Anyone who runs their own business can tell you how... Read More

Take the Logo Litmus Test

Here is your C.I.T.T. (pronounced "kit")[Color ? Illustrate? Type ?... Read More

Promotional Marketing Products ? Selecting the Perfect Item

People are known to shop on impulse- buying an item... Read More

How Price Gouging Can Hurt Your Business

"Price gouging" is an emotional, inflammatory term. Everyone is against... Read More

Why Your Business Need a Website

Web Presence gives your business a distince edge over your... Read More

A Great Marketing Model ? Utilizing the Power of OPM

Staying ahead of the marketing curve seems to be a... Read More

Pay for Performance Pricing Models for Search Engine Optimization

I do think that it is entirely possible for an... Read More

The Anatomy of Hype

On a copywriting board I frequent, someone expressed bafflement that... Read More