Improve Direct Mail Performance by Segmenting Your Mailing List

Here at Compu-Mail, we strive to help our customers deliver compelling, individualized messages that convert by taking their customer insights and directing them to the right people at the right place.

We have written at length on topics like making your customer database your biggest priority and leveraging your data to power up your customer acquisition campaigns. But we also know that not all marketers are ready to take these steps.

Before you can begin to individualize your messages, you need to have a strong segmentation plan in place that identifies the types of customers you have and the frequency of which they buy, so you can adjust the strategy behind the marketing messages you send each of them.

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Here are four easy segments to break your mailing list into to improve direct mail performance:

1. Active Customers: These are the customers that buy, and buy often. This is the best target for cross-sell and up-sell efforts. They don’t always need a strong offer, although it doesn’t hurt to send them one. They should receive marketing message the most often, and the messages should be designed to keep your brand top-of-mind so they don’t even stop to think of buying from anyone else. You can also strengthen your relationship with them by asking them for reviews/testimonials that allow them to reflect positively on their experience with you, and even ask for referrals that help further grow your business.
2. Inactive Customers: These customers buy from you, but not in a while or not consistently. They may need a boost in the form of a compelling offer that motivates them to act. A quick “we miss you! Take XX% off!” message could remind them of their experience with you and be the boost they need to purchase from you again. Once they become more active, you can move them to the Active Customers segment and adjust your strategy once more.
3. Past Customers: These customers have stopped purchasing from you. You may need to do a deeper analysis on this one and identify the last time they purchased from you and how frequently they were purchasing. Depending on how long it has been, they may not be aware of your current product/service offering and may need to be re-introduced to your new brand. You may also want to look at whether or not they were purchasing from you and suddenly stopped, and send them a quick survey asking why that was the case and if there is anything you can do to get them to purchase from you again.
4. Prospects/Never Purchased: These prospects have never purchased from you, no matter what offer you send them. In this case, you should consider refining your acquisition strategy to filter out uninterested or irrelevant prospects because these people will never buy from you, and you risk wasting money sending them messages to which they will never respond.

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The Bottom Line

These are just four segments to get you started thinking about how to break down your mailing list to improve the performance on your direct mail campaign. Once you master marketing to segments like these, you can begin to further break the segments down and start looking at your customers on a more individual level.