(Multichannel Merchant) Contacting customers with a direct mail piece, such as a catalog, requires data processing. Data processing can be as simple as 1) deciding that you want to mail anyone who made a purchase from your company in 2006; 2) selecting the customers' names and
addresses from your computer system; and 3) printing the mailing
information on peel-and-stick address labels. Not very complex, but
definitely doable in three easy steps.
Using
a data processing service to prepare your mailings provides several
advantages, however. From identifying duplicate records to revealing
unique buyers within the same household, the opportunity to cultivate
information from the data becomes more accessible. This accessibility
gives you insight into segmenting the customers you want to mail and
better identifying those you want to omit from the mailing.
Preparing
for a mailing usually includes sending the data processing provider all
the lists to be evaluated and considered for the mailing. Examples
include customer records, catalog requestors, inquiries, sweepstake
entrants, rented names, and suppression files. Along with the records,
you will send “the list of lists,” a document of every list segment and
its corresponding identifiers such as list name, list description,
quantity, keycode, list ID, family ID, and merge hierarchy and
instructions. Each element has an important role as you decide who will
receive the mailing. Thus begins the merge/purge.
In
its basic form, the merge/purge is the process of merging all lists
together and purging duplicates. And in doing so, however, you can gain
additional data insights to help with audience segmentation. Here are
the type of data to look for and how to use them.
Descending order Providing
the data in a hierarchy from most important to least important is one
of the simplest ways to visually recognize data. Particularly helpful
to companies that cannot send unique records by customer segment, the
merge/purge will omit duplicates while retaining the record highest in
the priority. What do we mean by that? Assume that there are 2,000
records in the 2007 customer group, which you've designated as
hierarchy 1, and 10,000 records in the 2006 customer group, assigned as
hierarchy 2. After the merge/purge, the 1,500 duplicates between
hierarchy 1 and 2 will be removed from the hierarchy 2 group and
retained in group 1. Now you'll have a clear picture of the 1,500
customers who made an additional purchase from 2006 to 2007.
Family IDs Another
way to reveal interaction among lists is to assign family IDs with like
segments. Most of the time, family IDs help identify and omit internal
duplicates from the file. When you assign the 2007, 2006, and 2005
buyers the same family ID, for instance, the duplicates will drop, and
one instance of the record will be retained with the highest list in
the hierarchy (in this case, the 2007 buyers).
If
you use family IDs with rented lists, each list rental is usually
assigned its own family ID to create multibuyers. If all list rentals
had the same family ID, then duplicates would be omitted instead of
recognized as a multis among the various lists.
Granted,
there are times when you may want to group some lists within the same
family ID. If you don't mail your catalog frequently, there might be a
financial advantage to omitting duplicates instead of creating multis.
Rental hits If
you build the list hierarchy with your customers at the highest
priority and list rentals toward the bottom, then any customers found
on both the rental list and your customer file will be identified as a
rental hit. Since this record is a duplicate, it will drop from the
rental list and be retained with the customer segment. The
identification of a rental hit alerts you to additional buying activity
in the marketplace. You may choose to mail only these customers,
particularly when you're trying to reactive older customer segments,
catalog requests, and sweepstakes entrants.
Rental multis When
merging lists and purging duplicates, the result — and benefit — of
this interaction is most evident with rental lists. For example, if a
record from a rental list is not found on your customer file but is
found on two other rental files, then the record is considered a
two-time (2x) multibuyer. You will mail the record from one of the
lists now, and you have the opportunity to mail the record one more
time in the future. (If you have assigned all the rental lists the same
hierarchy placement, as is commonly done, the record will randomly
remain with one of the two lists.)
When
the merge/purge is complete, the report for the rental multis is also
parsed to isolate 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, and 9x+ multis
representing the original tally of duplicates. The 2x multis will
account for the plurality of these dupes, and the 9x+ will be the
scarcest — after all, it is less likely to find a rental name on nine
or more rental lists than on just two lists.
Unique household names Often
a mailing strategy is designed to send one catalog per household.
Though this is a practical strategy, it denies you the opportunity to
identify additional buyers at the same address. This is particularly
true with roommate situations. As you write the merge/purge
instructions, ask the service bureau to look for unique names at the
same household. You can then identify additional recipients to include
with the mailing instead of omitting one of the records as a household
duplicate.
Reviewing data on an individual level, you can
also look at gender-based first names among people sharing a last name
at the same household to help identify married people (say, “John
Davis” and “Amy Davis”). You can then decide if you want to mail both
or only one.
Maiden/married name Similar
to the process of recognizing unique household names, identifiying a
person who may be on the list under her maiden name as well as her
married name is equally important as you strive to avoid mailing two
catalogs to one recipient. By having the service bureau look for the
maiden-now-married naming convention, you can clearly call out this
type of duplication.
Maximum contacts Each
business-to-business merchant uses different criteria to determine how
many catalogs to send to a single address. One way to help guide your
decision is to ask to review the merge/purge results and evaluate the
fields for “title” and “contact name.” As an example, if your company's
policy is to send up to five catalogs per mailing address, you might
want to eliminate records without a title or a contact name. Perhaps
for your situation, you may choose to add a title slug, “authorizing
purchasing agent” or “school principal.” As you review the output from
the merge/purge, the information can help provide options and reveal
opportunities.
E-mail hits If your
internal systems are not integrated, you may not be able to identify
catalog customers who also have a promotable e-mail address,
information that is helpful if you are trying to manage the number of
customer contacts you make via print and other media. One easy way to
gain this visibility is to send the file of all e-mail customers with a
promotable e-mail address to the service bureau and have it matched to
the customers included with merge/purge. The objective is to have an
e-mail flag identifying customers on your mailing list who have also
agreed to receive promotional e-mail. This allows you to decide if you
want to send these customers fewer catalogs but more e-mail messages,
for instance, and if you'd like to keycode them separately.
NCOA The
National Change of Address (NCOA) processing can serve many functions.
The purpose of cleansing the file and identifying any new movers
focuses on the importance of mailing the catalog to each recipient's
current address. You also have the opportunity send a catalog to the
old address as a prospecting opportunity. Depending upon the
merchandise assortment, the demographic of the old address may be
aligned with your target market. Another byproduct of NCOA processing
are all the deliverability reports, which enable you to mail to
addresses that might not have been deliverable exactly as they appeared
on your file. NCOA can also reveal temporary addresses, such as those
of “snowbirds” — northerners moving to southern states for the winter
months. These part-time southerners may need a different merchandise
assortment or marketing messages. As always, more information gives you
more options.
Also
remember that with NCOA processing, you should update your customer
database, not just the names you're mailing this particular time, with
the new NCOA information. If you don't apply the updates to your
system, you will continually pay for the same NCOA changes each time
you ask the data processing provider to run NCOA. One way to tell if
your system has been applying the data is to review the reports
indicating each record's move date. When you regularly update your
system, the move dates will be more recent; when you don't regularly
update your system, you'll find move dates well beyond six months.
Merge/purge
processing is a necessary step when preparing a mailing. The
opportunity to use the results from the output can be a valuable
segmentation tool. Talk with your vendor to help you develop the right
instructions for the merge/purge. If you tell him what you want to do
with the data, he will explain how you can access the information, as
well as if there are additional costs beyond the basic merge/purge, and
if the process will require more time. Most likely you already pay for
the data — now use the information as a segment tool. These techniques
can increase the productivity of your mail plan.
Gina Valentino is the owner of Hemisphere Marketing, a catalog consultancy based in Kansas City, MO.
