How to Identify Your Prospects
It’s not easy. In fact, it’s darn hard. It takes lots of time and thought and the results can be misleading and far from what you would have envisioned.
Here are some general hints to help non-professional marketers pin down their best prospects. Whether or not you use direct mail, email, telephones or any other media channel, you must decide the relative importance of the criteria that is available.
The current term used for a wide conglomeration of information is called Big Data. It refers to a collection of information that been gathered about people or businesses. The data is either self-reported through surveys by direct mail or on the internet… or by appended information from existing databases (real estate records, auto registrations, voter information, census data, boat or aircraft registrations, telephone books, directories, membership rosters, state or federal occupation files, city, county, and federal tax info, etc. etc.).
Add to this the thousands of Internet sites that record lifestyle or hobby interests. These lists alone total many tens of millions of records in hundreds of categories of products and services.
Now, here’s the first step. Reduce your requirements to those that are really more relevant. Select those prospects in an age bracket (assuming you have researched your client list) or in lieu of a client file, a category of income and age that will be a major step in reducing your target market.
If you are selling an item for the single-family home, then omit all multiple dwelling addresses. The same simple demographics apply to ethnic origin, male vs. female, children in family, mortgage information, geography, etc.
Then select the type of lifestyle that relates to your business. There are 200 choices including book or magazine readership, hobbies and crafts, financial and investment data, travel, health, self-improvement, sports, life event data, senior adult interests, ailment information, autos and vessel info, medical professionals, licensed professionals, business and industry data, energy and utility usage, response data (subscribers, donors, shoppers), plus new hotline records (movers, businesses, homeowners, births, newlyweds, etc.).
Let’s assume that you will reach your prospects by email and perhaps, direct mail. Therefore, choose only those records that contain both addresses.
So, make a choice of all the data that’s available to you. Find out the quantity of records that meet your requirements. Decide if you want to send email announcements, product descriptions, money saving coupons, etc. etc.
We’ll work with you to really pinpoint your very best customers and provide you with a file that’s been handpicked for your exclusive use.
Please email us at dunhill@dunhillintl.com, or call us at 1-800-DUNHILL (386-4455) today for your personalized quotation.
Sincerely,
Robert Dunhill, President
