Targeting Through Direct Marketing – Reaching Your Target Audience

3 Ways to Use Customer Data to Create Marketing that Converts

If you’ve attempted direct marketing of any sort, you have probably learned the painful lesson of what happens when you send generic marketing or try to do it with traditional mass media. Without targeted outreach, much of your marketing efforts end up wasted on people who were never going to buy.

Sending emails to random lists, buying up whole zip codes and blasting them with direct marketing campaigns, advertising on Facebook to the broadest possible audience – none of this usually produces a very good return on investment, whether in immediate conversions or long-term customer relationships.

Direct marketing campaigns work best when paired up with effective target marketing. Today, you get to discover how to do that. Let’s get started.

What qualifies as direct marketing?

Direct marketing is a strategy for direct communication with prospects. Ideally, you’ll send tailored messages to the right audience for specific products or services.

Remember, it’s the opposite of brand awareness marketing. You’re not making a TV commercial that evokes emotions, shows a bunch of images, and ends with a logo but never makes any attempt to sell anything. And you’re not just trying to get internet traffic.

For companies deploying the most effective direct marketing campaigns, their main goal is to engage potential customers with a specific offer that they must decide to ignore, consider for later, or act on immediately. You;re speaking to a highly targeted market, not a general audience.

Direct marketing is closely related to something called direct response marketing. The main difference with direct response is in the emphasis on the call to action and the incentive to act immediately, along with very specific instructions for how to do that.

Direct marketing can be used in B2B and B2C campaigns, so this can be for companies and consumers.

Which marketing channels can use direct marketing?

You can create direct marketing campaigns in a wide array of channels, but they tend to be a bit more effective in some channels over others. As you’ll see in a bit, one of the most effective direct marketing channels is front door marketing – using media like (but definitely not limited to) door hangers to reach potential customers right on their front porches.

You can use a direct marketing strategy with most media channels, including:

Email marketing
Direct mail marketing including Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)
SMS marketing
Digital marketing such as PPC ads, display ads, and the business website
Television and radio

Unlike traditional marketing strategies like brand awareness campaigns, direct marketing focuses on engaging your potential customers directly so it feels like you’re speaking right to them.

To do this, you must focus your marketing efforts on specific customers in each advertising campaign you send out.

The purpose of targeting

Effective targeting is how direct marketing succeeds in connecting with potential buyers who are more likely to want and need what your company sells.

When you know something about the consumers who will receive your advertising, you can use language, imagery, values, cultural references, and design features that appeal to that target audience. When you precisely target specific segments of consumers, you’ll be more successful in engaging them.

Target marketing is also a more cost-effective way of doing business because a higher percentage of recipients will respond, and you don’t need to send your materials to as many people. Plus, you can get measurable results, which you can’t with brand-centric messages.

The ability to get attention and engage a prospect increases exponentially when you’re able to speak to them at this more personal level in your direct marketing campaigns.

6 ways to reach consumers with direct marketing

You can target your marketing efforts based on many consumer categories all at once, or for just one or two in particular. It depends on how heavily you want to invest in developing your lists, which channels and marketing tools you choose to use, and the advertising resources at your disposal.

Here are six types of targeting you can use when you launch your next direct marketing campaign:

Geographic – you can target for cities, zip codes, street blocks, neighborhoods, even specific addresses
Demographic – includes things like age, income, ethnicity, education level, and type of residence
Behavioral – how do people prefer to buy? Over the phone, through the mail, in person, online? Do they prefer deliveries or pickups? These preferences shape your service and offers
Psychographic – interests, hobbies, values, political leanings, financial behaviors – these play a much deeper role in why consumers make the buying decisions they make
Platform preferences – some people avoid traditional TV and radio completely; others still watch and listen to hours of it. Digital marketing breaks down into dozens of categories. Do they prefer video, social media, or search? Are they turning to AI for their questions? How do they respond to email marketing and text messages? Do they use mobile, desktop, or both? What about direct marketing campaigns like flyers, catalogs, or front door marketing?
Existing customers – New customer acquisition isn’t the only game in town. Direct marketing is a great way to increase the average lifetime value of your existing customer base.

Of these six categories, which one represents the most valuable source of information about potential buyers?

They’re all useful, but for nearly all companies, regardless of size, the most valuable one is the last one. Here’s why:

The best source for targeting insights for direct marketing

Your current and previous customers provide valuable insights into who buys your products and services. And, you already have the data on them, so it’s easier to access and costs you nothing to acquire.

For instance, one company we know was using social media marketing strategies that appeal to people in their 20s and 30s. But when they looked through their customer data, they realized their average customer was about 50 years old. Were they reaching their true demographic as well as they could? Probably not.

Improper targeting is often the number one error made in direct mail marketing. To solve it, begin by looking at your current customers and sales information. How much from each of the targeting categories above do you know about them?

How to use data to target your marketing campaigns

Your data should reveal which types of targeting listed above will be most effective if you want to increase sales using direct marketing. And this is true for re-selling to your existing customers as well as reaching new ones. Here are three strategies to focus on.

1. Use the right channel

Figure out where your target audience is likely to be, and use that channel for your first direct marketing campaign. You can try other options and branch out later, after you see what kind of conversion rates you get.

Direct marketing, and especially door hanger marketing, are great strategies to use first because of the nearly 100% impression rates – nearly every recipient looks at the door hanger. Your response rates from this campaign will give you a sense of what you can get using other methods.

Certain channels will be more effective with certain target audiences. Sometimes you may even want to send brand ambassadors directly to houses or events.

2. Identify common features

If your customers fit specific demographic profiles, then create tailored marketing materials that align with their reality. Do most of your customers have kids? Put more emphasis on that in your message. Do most of them live in multi-family units as opposed to single family homes? Use that to target your mailing lists.

What does a campaign cost?

Get a custom-built sample campaign with real targeting data, ad creative, cost estimates, and distribution plans.

Use the Project Estimator

Using a targeted approach that connects with a prospect’s real life gets their attention, mainly because it hardly ever happens. You break through the clutter when you speak into their real life, and real needs. This goes way beyond price.

For example, a telecommunications company might realize that many of their subscribers have families with kids and would prefer more lines, but it’s too expensive. They could then target families – even to the exclusion of people without kids – and make multiple phone lines a key feature in their offers.

3. Acquire targeted mailing lists

Another use of common features is that it allows you to acquire more specialized mailing lists, whether in direct mail or for an email marketing campaign.

With Power Direct, you can acquire and specify mailing lists with a much higher degree of precision for the types of consumers your advertising is intended to reach.

We have over 4000 demographic and psychographic categories you can access. And when you combine our available data with your existing customer data, you can develop an ultra-specific mailing list, which enables ultra-specific and targeted messaging.

4. Plan on multiple touches

Most people need to be reached multiple times before they respond to your marketing campaigns. Just sending out one advertisement doesn’t usually do the job. Consumers need to see it repeatedly. And when the whole campaign reaches them through multiple channels, your message is more likely to sink in and motivate a response.

Each marketing channel offers its own targeting capabilities. Examples you’re familiar with: Certain cable channels and streaming services cater to very specific audiences with identifiable psychographic and demographic characteristics. Different social media channels tend to cater to people with different ages, interests, political preferences, and other criteria.

In front door marketing, Power Direct’s specialty, you can leverage highly advanced targeting technology that allows you to focus your door hanger distribution down to specific addresses, each of which possesses the qualities you’re looking for.

Imagine reaching something as specific as: homeowners who own at least two cars, have a pool, spend at least $500 a month on entertainment, and have been customers with the same telecom company for at least five years.

See 4 address-level targeting capabilities for front door marketing

5. Create smart direct marketing campaigns

All the targeting in the world does little good if you don’t use it wisely. Here are some other direct marketing tips to capitalize on your targeting strategies so you can save money while also winning a greater response:

Follow up with new customers

Once you win a customer, your next goal is to turn them into a repeat buyer. Strong consumer relationships are the foundation of ongoing revenue. But repeat sales don’t just happen.

Follow up with new buyers. Ask for feedback about their purchase experience. Engage them with personalized messages and other direct marketing communication. Don’t just assume they’ll keep coming back. Following up encourages people to continue to shop with your brand.

And you can follow up using a wide array of media channels. This is one of the best uses of social media.

Create new offers

Send special offers and promotions to motivate a second purchase. And loosen the creative guardrails. There are numerous types of offers. Don’t just keep sending 10% off coupons. The best direct marketing campaigns are the ones that get attention and arouse emotion. A good offer can do that.

Look for ways to increase order size, sell new products or services, get more referrals, or get reviews, and promote these components in your offers.

Speak directly to your target audience

Effective direct marketing campaigns do not use generalized content for a broad audience. You want to use words and phrases that attract your desired audience and enable them to see themselves in your message. You want them to think “That’s for me.”

If you’re selling to families, identify that audience in your campaign, especially the headline. If you’re selling to particular ethnic groups, income levels, household types, or other customer demographic data, look for ways to inject those in your most visible messages. This can include words and images.

Measure everything

When you know what’s working and what isn’t, you can drive sales and higher response rates. Track the most relevant consumer behavior such as response rates, conversion rates, clicks, phone calls, coupons used, and whatever other data is relevant for your advertising campaign.

For direct mail campaigns, you can track coupon codes, trackable phone numbers, dedicated landing page visits, and various other metrics that have been in use for decades in this particular channel.

And, all the same marketing strategies and testing potential you can do with direct mail can also be done – often even easier and more effectively – with door hanger marketing from Power Direct.

Test frequently

With direct marketing campaigns using physical media like door hangers, brochures, flyers, and catalogs, you can create numerous versions of the same marketing materials and send them out in equal numbers to a smaller segment of your target audience. Then, if one outperforms the other, send that to the larger share of potential customers.

Power Direct’s real-time reporting – particularly for brand ambassador campaigns – allows you to adjust campaigns quickly for optimal results that appear near the beginning of the campaign instead of the tail end.

Measuring and testing are the heart of direct response marketing. When you know what works, you can keep doing it in your next direct marketing campaign, and expand it to other markets or locations your brand hasn’t engaged yet.

The most effective channel for direct marketing

This is just an introduction for how to target using direct marketing.

Of all the available direct marketing channels, front door marketing provides the most highly targeted, high-impact, high-visibility direct-to-consumer engagement in the world. Nothing gets more attention than an item left on the front door. It’s guaranteed to be seen. No other channel can compare in that metric.

To see if door hanger marketing might be a smart direct marketing approach when you launch your next campaign, click the link below and find out more about our service, and how we have enhanced its effectiveness through highly sophisticated and technologically precise targeting.

Tell Me More about Front Door Marketing and Targeting