One of the mail order maven's key tasks is to get that catalog or other vehicle to its ultimate destination--the customer. Classified or display ads will reach their targets through whichever newspapers or magazines you place them in. Radio and TV spots will hone in on prospective customers through the broadcast venues they're placed in. But what about catalogs and direct-mail pieces? How do you get a catalog or direct-mail piece aimed at dog lovers in the mailboxes of puppy-philes and not those of cat fanciers or professed pet haters?
You know the answer: through mailing lists, those Santa-sized rosters of names, addresses and phone numbers. But did you know that there are companies out there called list brokers, which exist solely to rent mailing lists? The savvy mail order maven not only knows this but also takes advantage of these lists to whisk catalogs straight into the hands of target customers.
A good list broker has hundreds of lists of qualified buyers and can pull out just about any criteria, or selects, you're interested in: for instance, people who own dogs, earn more than $50,000 per year, live in the Midwest, have high-school-age children, and have purchased something by mail order within the past six months.
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Mailing list costs can vary tremendously, depending on what sort of list you're renting and how many selects, or variables, you want. First, you'll need to decide whether you want a compiled list, made up, for example, of people who by age and income might be Hawaiian cruise prospects, or a response list, made up of people who have actually purchased Hawaiian cruises already--those qualified buyers we mentioned.
Because the compiled list isn't as specific, it's cheaper. You can expect to pay an average of $50 per 1,000 names, says Daren Cicchillo of Lighthouse List Company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The response list, on the other hand, may cost as much as $120 per 1,000 names, plus $5 to $10 extra for each select you choose (age, income, geographic region, etc.). Business-to-business names can be even more expensive, Cicchillo says, because fewer people offer them, so they're harder to come by. Expect to pay $75 to $200 per 1,000 names for this type of list.
Advertising
Print ads are terrific vehicles for getting your message to your target market and come in one of two styles: classified and display. So with magazines in mind, let's start off with display ads, which usually feature some sort of graphics combined with the printed word and are found throughout a publication (as opposed to classifieds which consist solely of the printed word and are found only in the classified section).
- Display ads. If you've done your homework and chosen a niche you're familiar with and enjoy, you probably already know which publications will work for you--they're the ones your target audience reads and the ones you probably read, too. These are the best places to start because you already understand at least part of the demographics and psychographics of their readers.
Pick up those issues off your coffee table or night stand. Study them carefully. Do mail order ads do well here? Compare the number of "traditional" ads with the number of mail order ads. If mail order makes up a significant portion, you can figure that other mail order companies are experiencing success with the publication--which means it's a good place to advertise. Also check for repeated ads featuring products similar to yours. If you're selling a carburetor tune-up kit, see who else is selling the same kind of kit or other auto maintenance merchandise. If all the other ads are for something entirely different, you probably don't want to advertise there either.
- Classified ads. The major appeal of classified ads for the mail order maven is that they're far less expensive than display ads. Add to that the bonus of simplicity--there's no layout to design, no graphics to worry about, and no choice of fonts to obsess over. Add another bonus--defined interest. People who peck around in the classifieds are often there because they're looking for something in that particular classification: vacation destinations or collectibles or money-earning opportunities or whatever. It's also an inexpensive proving ground. You can test new products for relative pennies and, if the response warrants it, step up to a display ad.
The downside of classified ads is that you've got an extremely limited space in which to make your pitch, you have nothing with which to catch your prospect's eye except words that graphically look just like everybody else's, and you've got a much smaller audience to work with. Far fewer people read the classified sections than the editorial ones. And some mail order products just can't be sold effectively through the classifieds. High-ticket items, products or services that require lots of explanation, and products that don't lend themselves to two-step ads don't make good classified candidates.
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