5 Steps to Successful Integration of Email, Social Media, Direct Mail, and Database

I had the wonderful opportunity of presenting at the ANLA Conference in Louisville yesterday. My seminar topic was over the integration of social media, direct mail, and email in order to create a streamlined direct response platform for customers. What we touched on during the event was the importance of understanding certain pieces of data that are taken from interactions with clients. Normally, we look at data like transactional and demographic information in order to make marketing decisions. Like… where is the person from, how old, income data, and what they spent in the store or business. However… that is not enough.

People aren’t just households in a segment, but are individuals with unique needs, motivations, interests and passions.  They only become committed, loyal advocates and a part of what you do when they see your organization’s mission as necessary. In order to shift marketing in a world where personalization and technology is changing the way customers communicate… YOU the business owner need to focus five different types of data for your marketing campaigns…. to start.

1. Psychological – People view the world differently.  A lawyer, auto mechanic, homemaker, artist, student or pilot all have different constructs of their needs as well as those of their family, friends, community.  Is the prospect a driver, intuitive, practical, calculative, creative, sympathetic?  How do we know and how does that instruct content creation?

2. Generational – People of different ages interact and communicate differently.  The media which is used to compel a response in 2011 is much different than 1980.  We need to be sure we aren’t trying to further perfect media that was designed for another time for other people.

3. Aspirational – Start with the end in mind.  What do you want your movement to do and how will you know it is a success?  What do you know about the goals, values and objectives of the people you want to compel and how can you use this information to start your movement?  What and when is a realistic next gift and what will they have done for themselves and your organization, after?

4. Transactional – What did the person spend and why did they spend it? This piece of information is usually the most recognized to database marketers.

5. Geographical – If you have a regional based business where location is extremely important… geographic information should be included in your database marketing campaign. Whether we are talking about zip code or mail route segmentation, remember that location is just as important as the other four segments.

Remember… the best marketers are your customers and in order to push those customers to advocate on your behalf… you MUST speak to them as an individual and not as a massive group.