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Make Your Own Luck: Find your Ideal Targets by Jeffrey Dobkin

Anyone can put a direct mail piece together and drop it at the post office. But without knowing who your target market is, you won’t score many sales.

The first consideration in any marketing campaign is to define your audience. Precisely who is your market? The more clearly you can see your target audience, the better you’ll be able to aim your mailing, and the better your response will be. The goal is to maximize response per thousand—to make that one extra person in 1,000 stop, look, pick up the phone and call.

Anyone can put a direct mail piece together and drop it at the post office. But without knowing who your target market is, you won’t score many sales.

Direct mail is like shooting fish in a barrel.

* First, you’ve got to find the right barrel: this is selecting the right lists.
* Then, you’ve got to figure out which barrel has the most fish: that’s buying the list with the most prospects.
* Narrowing the size of the list further with proper list selection overlays—such as recency, frequency, and monetary purchase criteria—is like reducing the size of the barrel, thus making sure the fish are big.
* Now you have a better chance at shooting the most fish with each shot—that is, getting the most response from each mailing.

The more clearly you can see your target audience, the better you’ll be able to aim your mailing, and the better your response will be.

Defining Your Market
The more precisely you identify your perfect prospect (the more tightly you specify your list), the better your response.

For example, suppose you’re selling a pilot’s bag to airplane pilots. You mail to a list of small airplane owners compiled from plane registrations. Your response is one percent, and you break even. All that work and you made zero profit.

Now let’s say you mail to a list of flying instructors. These pilots are airplane enthusiasts. Since your bag has a cool picture of a plane on it, they love it. Your mailing draws two percent and you make a little money.

Now you try a different tack: You mail to a list of mail order buyers who have recently made a purchase from an airplane specialty catalog. This time your mailing brings a six percent response. Old friends start dropping by to swim in your new pool.

Now you’re getting smart. You buy a list of flying instructors who own planes and who recently made a purchase from an airplane specialty catalog. Your mailing draws nine percent, the size of your pool doubles and you’ve learned the value of purchasing the correct mailing list.

Granted, list research and selection is not glamorous work. It’s the behind-the-scenes grind to figure out and specify the best list parameters. It’s not like creating a slick brochure. But you can see your mailing go from no response to profitable in a hurry, just in the extra attention to and correct selection of your mailing list.

Jeffrey Dobkin, the author of the books "How To Market A Product For Under $500!" and "Uncommon Marketing Techniques," is a specialist in direct response copywriting. He analyzes and tunes-up clients' letters; writes powerful, response-driven sales letters, TV commercials and scripts; crafts persuasive catalog copy; and creates exceptionally hard-hitting direct mail packages. He also analyzes direct marketing packages, ads, catalogs, and campaigns. Mr. Dobkin is an acclaimed fun and funny speaker and a direct marketing consultant. Call him directly at 610-642-1000 or visit www.jeffreydobkin.com for free samples of his work. Or fax your letter to (610-642-6832) for a free evaluation.