| |
| |
|
Marketing Information |
|
|
|
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
MORE RESOURCES:
Marketing - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Attract More Clients by Raising Your Profile One of the most common issues I'm asked about is how to raise the profile of a business to attract more clients.This is an important issue no matter how small or large your business may be. Marketing Effectively to More Than One Audience What's a small business owner to do if they have more than one audience to market to? Perhaps they need to attract clients but they also need to recruit business partners or vendors. Do they need two marketing plans or can they use one plan that tries to address both aspects?This is a great question that applies to many different types of businesses who find they need to market to more than one group of people. How to Earn the Right "How to Earn the Right.. 21 Ways To Expand Your Subscriber List Expanding your subscriber list, whether it be for your ezine, newsletter -- printed or electronic -- takes persistence, and commitment. Not to mention time and letting go of the frustruation of it all. The Top 10 The Top Ten Signs That Your Marketing Message Needs a Facelift Is your marketing plan dull, flat, and downright boring? Is it lacking the zest and appeal which can penetrate the consciousness of your buyers? If so, you may be driving away folks who could easily buy your products or services. If so, these ten signs from The 90 Day Marketing Marathon Blunders from A to Z: B is for Boring will support you in raising your awareness of what drives folks away and tips on how you can create a message which will catch fire in the market place. The X Factor So you've invested more time than you ever believed possible on your website and in optimizing the pages for the search engines. Having sacrificed weekends and holidays, you've ensured that your site ranks in the Top 10. 6 MUST Have Strategies To Make Big Bucks with Big Ticket Items Strategy #1: Change Your Mindset That's right, change your mindset! It's probably the number one most important strategy when selling Big Ticket Items. Plenty of people are uncomfortable selling items that are priced above the $500 - $1000 mark. Brainstorming Techniques as New Product Development Strategies When developing new products and strategies, coming up with unique ideas is often a struggle. It is one of the reasons why, in any industry, there is so much repetition. Top Five Tips for Marketing that Gets Results When marketing your practice, as well as designing your brochure, website, business card, flier, advertisement, or other marketing effort, I recommend investing the time and effort needed to effectively address the following:Tip #1: MARKET FOR YOUR DESIRED PROSPECTS, NOT YOURSELFWhat looks good to you is not necessarily effective for your desired audience. Do your market research and test your strategies on your target market. Nine Advance Networking Skills for Seasoned Networkers A seasoned networker knows the real meaning of networking -- being organized, efficient, effective, and, of course, work the event to its fullest. Attending networking groups after so many years can tire and drain anyone's excitement. Top 7 Ways to Get Your Products in the Hands of Celebrities Celebrities are the tastemakers that drive brand awareness and usage. Celebrities drive the direction of trends. Profitable Marketing Programs (Part 1) Deciding whether a particular marketing program is profitable to your business is often more subjective than the accountants would have you believe. You should not only consider the direct revenue and costs associated with a marketing program, but you should also think about the long term impact on your business. Keeping your Business Card visible Famous quotes that keep you thinking.Have you ever listened to a speaker and they say something that you want to make note of and use later? More than likely, you will write it down and then file it away, never to be uttered again. Whats Your Selling Sentence? What's your Selling Sentence? If you have a business, you need a selling sentence.Sometimes called the Defining Sentence or the Secondary Statement, the Selling Sentence is the group of words that clarify and refine the the nature of your business when seen or heard with the name or logo of your business. Twelve Places to Buy a Mailing List ©2004 Jeffrey DobkinThere are two types of lists, determined by their origin: compiled lists and response lists.Compiled lists are a common source of names and records that have been gathered, collected, and entered into a database. So What Do You Do? Once you have the attention of a business prospect, at some point in the conversation, the prospect will ask you, "So what do you do?". In most cases, you will only have 60 seconds, to catch the interest of the prospect. Natural Marketing for Full Business Success Is your mind muddy on marketing? Do you wake up each day and say, "I get to share myself and my great message with others" or do you say, " I have to market, or I will fail."Natural marketing refers to the action you take to get the word out about your service and product that rings true to your heart. Name the Top Cable Network When Cable began as Community Antenna Television in 1948, all it did was collect over the air TV signals and send them down a cable.When Cable networks began, so did Cable advertising. Postcard Mania Will postcards be an advantage for you?The latest craze these days is to send a postcard advertisement to everyone on a mailing list. It is both good and annoying to customers. No One Gives A Damn About Your Business. Unless You Give em A Reason To The good news is that there are thousands of people looking for what you offer. The bad news is that those people are extremely tough to attract not to mention that your very livelihood depends on it.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
