Broker vs. Compiler.
I often get asked if we are a list broker or complier. My answer to that question is we are a combination of both. Here at CAS I truly pride myself in being able to offer my clients a full range of marketing data services. Mailing lists brokers are looking at purchasing mailing lists on behalf of their clients and more times than not, they do not actually house the data within their own walls. They are searching the web deciding where to buy mailing lists and other marketing services for their clients. On the other hand, list compliers collect the data and house it internally and sell the lists to the outside world. List compliers are usually only selling their lists and not making recommendations to the client if it something they do not have on their menu of products or services.
What is CAS?
CAS has the unique advantage of being in both worlds. We house internally over 50 separate databases available for rent on our fully automated count and order platform, www.Turbo-Marketing.net. We have developed our own software for list hygiene and append services, all done internally. If the client is looking for a database or service not on our menu, we have the ability to go and search for a solution with one of our trusted partners.
Whether it is mailing list services, email services, list hygiene or enhancing your own customer database we are a responsive, flexible one-stop shop. Learn more about CAS and who are here. If you’re interested in receiving a free quote or consultation regarding your marketing efforts, click here.
Pete Coniglio, Strategic Sales Consultant
The Truth About Click-Through Rates
E-mail marketing is a growing trend in today’s industry. Everyone will tell you that they have the best practices for e-mail marketing and how to achieve the best click through rates. Unfortunately, the truth is that there is no single rule that applies to all e-mail marketing campaigns. The click through rate is determined by a number of factors.
I’m here to tell you the best way to generate a high CTR. The content of the e-mail campaign is the most important factor. You need to have strong content that is going to be compelling and relevant to your target market. If the message of your mail is highly relevant to your target audience, it is most likely to result in better CTR’s. Before they can look at the content you need to entice them to open your email. This is accomplished by having a strong subject line. This is something that will appeal to your audience and compel them to open their e-mail.
Once the e-mail is open then make sure to have easy and accessible links. Every link in an email is an opportunity to get a click-through. The number of links you include in your email plays a role in the email CTR you get.
Get Some Help
These are just a few quick and easy things you can do to increase your CTR. Ask me or any of the Data Experts how you can see your next campaign succeed by using CAS' email marketing services. Feel free to give me a call or get more information here.
Alex Anderson, Targeted Sales
Recently, the USPS announced an exciting incentive for marketers to combine their mobile marketing efforts with direct mail. During the months of July and August 2012 the Postal Service is offering a 2% discount on Standard Mail and First-Class Mail letters, flats, and cards that have a two-dimensional barcode or print/mobile technology. These barcodes must be able to be read or scanned by a mobile device. See below for all requirements for this incentive.
What’s the benefit of using this type of mobile technology?
Quick response codes or otherwise known as QR codes have become increasingly popular on the marketing scene within the last few years. In a study done by Comscore, it was reported that “as of 2011, 14 million mobile users in the U.S., that’s 6.2 percent of the total mobile audience scanned a QR code on their mobile device.”
QR codes give you the ability to capture your audience and send them directly to a landing page of your choice. These codes can be placed almost anywhere including direct mail pieces, store fronts, magazines, billboards, and more. Now is the time to implement that multi-channel marketing campaign you’ve wanted to do. With the recent announcement of a discount through the USPS you can now design a direct mail piece and customize it with a QR code that sends the recipient of your mail piece to a specific landing page. This type of marketing campaign can create a deeper connection with those who you are trying to target. It gets your customer or prospect more involved with your message. You can even go as far as creating a landing page with a form and place your prospects in your sales funnel. The possibilities seem endless once you decide to connect your direct mail efforts with the online world. Ask a Data Expert from CAS, on how we can help with your mobile and direct mail efforts.
Are there any requirements for the USPS discount?
Below are requirements taken from: https://www.usps.com/mobile-barcode.htm
Mailing Requirements
To be eligible for the discount, all the mail received must contain a 2-D barcode, and mailing documentation must be submitted electronically.
Postage must be paid using a Permit Imprint, Meter Permit, or Precancelled Stamp permit.
Mobile Commerce Requirements
If the bardcode is used to facilitate mobile commerce...
Destination web page must contain information relevant to content on the mailpiece, and some or all of the service(s) and/or product(s) advertised in the mailpiece must be available for purchase on a mobile device.
Destination web pages must reside on a web site platform that allows shoppers to complete a financial transaction for the purchase of the good or service referenced in the mailpiece.The shopping and checkout experience must be completely mobile optimized, which means specifically designing your site for optimum performance when viewed on a mobile device, such as a smartphone.
Please visit the USPS site for all requirements.
Beth Hoffman, Data Expert & Marketing Coordinator
We have previously written a blog post about the pros and cons of using multi-channel marketing. Let me get into the topic a little deeper and show you how to build your brand by using multi-channel marketing.
Let’s start off with a quick recap…as mentioned in our blog post "How to Effectively Use Multi-Channel Marketing", we defined Multi-channel marketing as:
Utilizing various forms of marketing avenues in the same campaign. These channels could be retail stores, direct mail, email, websites, catalogs, paid and organic search, and more.
I want to build my brand.
When someone asks you to name a sports brand, I bet one of the first names you might think of is Nike. If someone asks you to name a place to grab coffee, Starbuck’s might come to mind. What these companies have done is created brand recognition. So why is branding so important? Brand recognition almost always makes a consumer’s choice easier because they are familiar with the company, the look of the product, how it might work or taste, etc. Consumers become trusting of brands that they see in advertising whether it’s a commercial or in their local grocery store. There are plenty of things you can do as a company to build your brand. Some results can be quick and some take years, but in the end it’s worth it to build a brand for your company.
Ways to build your brand.
First thing is first, understand your customers wants and needs. Once you know the basics of what your customers want you can successful reach them. The more “human” and “real” you seem to your prospects or customers the more loyal they may become. Also, keep your brand in front of them as much as possible. This can be done through multi-channel marketing. Create a solution that works for your company, such as choosing which channels you want to use. In the branding stage you are attempting to create awareness, you could try using a simple approach using: direct mail, email, and telephone.
Whatever channels you decide to use, you want to keep the message, the look, the feel, colors, and anything else consistent among the whole campaign. By grabbing and maintaining the attention of your customers or prospects you can begin to build your brand.
How can I get help with multi-channel marketing?
At CAS, we can help you get started with your branding efforts by using multi-channel marketing campaigns. We have direct mail lists for business or consumer, email marketing programs, and data hygiene services. All these products and services can help you decide the direction you want to go. Building your brand can seem overwhelming and we can help with advice and consultation; give me or any of the Data Experts a call today, or visit here to ask us a question.
Arthur Mecom, Data Aficionado
Phone: 402-963-2096
You may have heard this time and time again, but the one most important thing you can remember is know your target market. Here are 4 ways you can segment your target market to get a better understand of who you are marketing to.
The Big 4.
- Geographic: Segment your audience based upon where they live, work, or play. You can use their location or address depending on what your offer is and what your call to action is. So maybe you want to target someone within 25 miles of your business or if you want to target certain zip codes. These would be examples of segmenting based upon geography.
- Demographic: Demographics often provide basic or “typical” information about a person. Popular demographics are: age, gender, income, occupation, education, household, stage in life, etc. You might want to use demographics as a segment to get some further information on who you are targeting. If you have a high end product you may want to target based upon income. By narrowing down your search you will be able to find prospects who may be more interested in your product then sending out a message to anyone and everyone.
- Psychographics: This type of segment gets into more of the “nitty gritty” details of who a person is and the things they like. Psychographics focuses in on a person’s attitudes, values, and lifestyles. This segment can help you find if someone is interested in reading, biking, sewing, etc. You can understand your prospect and send a more targeted message to them and be able to connect with them on a deeper level.
- Behavioral: Similar to psychographics this is how one will behave to product offers. This segment can tell you how loyal someone is when it comes to buying. Do they prefer name brand or off-brand? How many times a month or year do they purchase a specific product? This gives you insight on how you might want to place your offer. You can also gage how often you might want to send them your message.
Can I Get Help Segmenting?
There are plenty of ways you can segment your prospect or customer database. These 4 options are great ways to start deciding how you want your target market to receive your message. If you are not sure where to start CAS can help you. We can provide you with geographic segments for business or consumer. We can also add demographic information to an existing database. We can even get as in-depth as behavioral segmentation with our flagship database ConsumerVision. Ask us today for a free quote or check it out here!
Beth Hoffman, Data Expert & Marketing Coordinator
Marketers today are testing multiple channels of marketing trying to find new prospects and identify ways to build more loyalty with current customers. Database Marketing is essential in establishing your brand and gaining market share. Below are the different areas of database marketing and some suggestions on how to drive ROI with your marketing strategy.
Learn about the different areas of database marketing.
Internal Database Marketing: This form of database marketing is when a company markets to their current customer list. Businesses today need to realize the importance of their current data. Most companies have historical information within their database ranging from buying patterns, response communications, and customer service. Make sure to create a personalized marketing strategy revolving around newsletters, promotions, and offer relevant information that will trigger response.
External Database Marketing: This form of database marketing is important when a company is trying to obtain leads and more customers. A major factor when looking for an external mailing list, telemarketing list, or e-mail list is the quality of the database. More importantly it’s the targeting behind the prospect list which will make a significant difference on ROI. Are you going after your ideal customer based on demographics such as targeting a prospects age, income, and race?
Consumer Database: Business to Consumer (B2C) database marketing is about targeting a prospect at a home address. You can target a consumer based on a number of different targeted selections such as general demographics, buying behaviors, interests, and self reporting information.
Business Database: Business to Business (B2B) database marketing normally is used when targeting a specify type of industry or a contact within the industry. A business mailing list is always at their business address. With B2B database marketing you can segment based on industry, contact name/title, revenue, employee size, and other factors.
How can I increase my response rate?
Having a general database can be pointless unless you understand your current database and use strategic targeting with external database marketing. Below are some helpful database marketing tips that can help increase your response rates.
Overkill will Kill Your Message: Good response lists should not be spammed with a ton of messages. Make sure you change your messaging providing relevant information that will be valuable to the customer or prospect
Smaller Targeted Lists Are Effective: Niche targeted databases allow you to test different offers focusing on your messaging. Test, Test, Test smaller targeted segments which will lead to proven ROI. Once you discover your best response then ramp up to larger volumes.
Which database marketing company should I use?
CAS, Inc is a full service database marketing company. With a strong history and outstanding customer service we've established ourselves as one of Direct Marketing's most innovative companies offering mailing lists, opt-in email marketing, data append, telephone append, and customer database hygiene/privacy update services. Let us help you with your next marketing campaign and we promise you will see outstanding results. Give me or any of the Data Experts a call today for a free consultation, or ask us a question online.
Kelly Krings, Manager - Targeted Sales
So, you’ve tried direct mail marketing and weren’t satisfied with the results. You decided it wasn’t worth the hassle of dealing with printers and postal regulations, so you gave up on it entirely. Let’s take a quick look at what might have gone wrong.
What does your mail piece look like?
The look and feel of the mail piece is the first step to getting it opened, read and hopefully acted upon. If it is a letter, make sure it is printed on quality paper and the printing looks professional. If you’re mailing a postcard, use color and images to attract prospects to look and read more. If your mail piece screams “junk mail” it may be a good idea to rethink what you are sending and possibly even hire some professional creative help.
Is your offer or message compelling enough to make someone want to act?
Now that you have a mail piece that has a decent look and feel, it is time to concentrate on your message or offer. Depending on what goals you have set on a particular mailing, you must entice your prospect to act or respond to your message. Maybe you are trying to get the phones ringing for your sales team or want people to respond to a special product offer. Whatever it is, you need to make it sound like your prospect will be missing out on something big if they don’t respond, call or reply. This may take some testing of different offers to see what performs best. Don’t give up if your first mailing flops. This is where many people go wrong. Success comes through trial and error.
Are you mailing to a targeted list that was recently updated?
You have a nice mail piece and a great offer, now you just need the right people to send it to. Whether you are targeting B2C or B2B, a quality targeted list is essential to your direct mail strategy. Make sure that the list you are sending to has been recently updated and ran through NCOA processing to ensure the highest deliverability. At CAS, you can be assured that the list you are receiving will be of the highest quality. This will enable you to increase your marketing ROI and help make your direct mail campaign a success.
Need a little more advice?
Let CAS guide you on your next marketing campaign. Check out our business and consumer mailing list options. If you want more information, feel free to contact us!
Mark Ferguson, Executive Sales Consultant
As marketers we have all heard the good, the bad, and the ugly about e-mail marketing. At a recent e-mail conference I met with over twenty plus marketers about e-mail marketing. What was interesting is that I received over twenty different answers. Why is this important? It’s important because it made me realize that nobody has e-mail marketing perfected. Globally, marketers are struggling to learn how to be successful and drive results with e-mail marketing.
This year will be the breakthrough year for e-mail. It’s never been as important as today to learn how to get response to an e-mail campaign while developing a relationship with those on your e-mail list. No matter what article you read or how many different experts you talk to, below are some proven strategies that will help you drive results in today’s confusing e-mail world.
Gain Visibility in a Crowded Inbox
- Offer: Why are you sending someone an e-mail? Ask yourself what would make you personally register or engage in the creative. So many marketers today lose focus of the offer. This is the sole reason someone will respond to your message. Make the offer appealing, different, and most importantly provide value, giving a prospect a reason to respond.
- Pictures: A picture is worth 1,000 words. Research shows that prospects and customers are drawn towards colors, pictures, and graphics. Facebook has recently changed their settings so you will see a picture on a home page of an individual profile. They did this because they researched, understood, and took action to capitalize on the power of images/pictures. Use pictures or graphics that stand out and immediately have an attraction to your prospect. One key thing to remember is make sure your pictures correlate with your offer.
- Simplicity: Content can be a killer with e-mail creative. Focus on three or more call to actions that engage prospects, make your offer the star of your creative, and utilize spacing to maximize engagement. Prospects look at an e-mail message and in less then 8 seconds they decide whether or not they are interested. Cramming a lot of information into a creative can hurt the engagement.
Create an Emotional Connection
- Be Authentic: Today’s prospects are smarter, they have more buying options, and prospects are easy to lose if you don’t establish a relationship. Every company is different and with that said, design the look, feel, and offer unique to your business. It doesn’t hurt exploring what your competition does, but be authentic and establish an identity that will trigger an emotional reaction.
- Relevance is King: A recent study indicated that individuals dislike getting e-mails that do not provide value to them. It’s important to provide a message that is relevant to your prospect. Promotional offers, information that can offer useful information or new product offerings are a great start.
Where Do I Go From Here?
All in all, it is important to keep some of the simple factors in mind. Remember all the important elements that go into the email creative. By taking a few extra minutes to establish credibility and an attractive offer, you will find that targeting prospects becomes a little easier. Now that you have an awesome creative, get your message out there! Try out an email program that fits your company’s goals and objectives. Have a question how email marketing works? Ask us!
Kelly Krings, Manager - Targeted Sales Division
Posted by
Greg Good on Tue, May 01, 2012 @ 04:41 PM
First Let’s Define B2B
Business to Business or commonly written as B2B is simple: your company sells to other companies...e.g. Office equipment, coffee service, employee development, marketing services and more!
What are 3 way you can grow your business?
-Get existing customers to spend more per purchase.
-Get existing customers to buy more frequently.
-Find new customers to buy your product or service.
For this entry I’ll share with you how you can find new customers in the B2B market.
How do I Find New Customers in the B2B Market?
Start off by identifying your “best” customers. Why not start with how these customers spend such as: highest gross sales, highest net sales, highest net margin, most repeat sales, etc.
Then you can move into what these customers look like. Are they a major corporation, a company with less then 10 employees, a retailer, a service organization, a government agency, a manufacturer, a non-profit? These are just some of the examples that your customer could look like.
By brainstorming and creating the “perfect” customer profile you can begin to decide how to move forward with your marketing efforts. Keep in mind only you can decide what you want your potential customer to look like.
A reputable marketing list company (such as CAS) will be able to help you find these prospects. Just about all business lists are sorted by Standardized Industrial Codes (SIC). SIC codes can be a good place to start when targeting your potential customer. Then you can continue to filter it from there. Sorting by company, employee size or sales volume might be the next logical step. Then you could try filtering by location such as headquarters, single location, or branch locations. Depending on what you are offering or who you are looking filtering could be a simple way to narrow down your prospect list.
How are you reaching out to your prospects?
Maybe by direct mail, targeted emails or a phone calls. Marketing 101 states that the more ways you can touch and the more times you can touch your prospects the more likely they are going to remember you when they need you product/service. Your marketing budget is a major factor in this process, but ideally you want to incorporate all 3 into your B2B marketing program to maximize the ROI on your marketing dollars.
Now you have the basics for your business to business marketing programs. Let us help you find all your B2B List Marketing needs. Happy Hunting!
Greg Good, Strategic Sales Consultant
As seen on the Today Show: “Telemarketers Ignore Do Not Call list”, the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry has been brought into focus yet again. Consumers are frustrated with telemarketers not following the DNC regulations; currently there are over 200 million phone numbers on this list. With that number in mind, have you updated your database against the DNC? If not do you know the legal consequences that could ensue?
What is the Do Not Call Registry?
The Federal Trade Commission began the DNC registry in 2003 which was created due to the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003. Basically, the DNC was created to give consumers a safe haven from telemarketing calls that they did not wish to receive. Several acts have followed to protect consumers. Originally phone numbers remained on the registry for a period of 5 years. There are new acts that have put stricter rules on the DNC, now once a number is put on the list it is permanent. See the bottom of the article for resources on learning more information.
How can you ensure your list is up to date?
CAS, offers plenty of services that can help you update and make your list DNC compliant. We can take your current customer database and scrub it against the DNC registry. We also update the National DNC, or also referred to as the FTC file every two weeks. CAS also includes multiple independent state, Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and cell phone files for scrubbing and flagging of your file. We take these extra steps to ensure that you are not only following legal regulations but we do it in good faith for the consumer. We believe it is never worth putting yourself and your company in legal trouble when you can simply keep your customer list updated.
Resources on DNC
Beth Hoffman, Data Expert & Marketing Coordinator