Contrary to UKD's assertions, I was heavily involved in targeted marketing campaigns back in the 80's. I ran a GIS based mapping and demographics company. We'd buy mailing lists and phone lists, then geocode them against census data to target race, age, sex, income etc. We'd add voting and polling data, and other interesting demographic data like having a pool in the yard.savestheday wrote:...and think Strong Eagle is being a bit more understanding now.
We sold targeted mailing lists for all sorts of localized (neighborhood) small businesses. We developed lists targeted businesses where our clients could place racks with freebies or even consignment merchandise. We ran studies for the best place to locate businesses catering to suburbanites.
We also sold lists, labels, and phone bank lists for political parties, including the Texas campaign for Reagan/Bush. We set up call centers to take polls and encourage the votes. We sent custom tailored requests for money.
And because we knew a lot about political demographics we supplied all the data (plaintiff, defendant, and the court all trusted our numbers) for a 2 year long federal court case involving Chicago aldermanic redistricting. Indeed, I personally wrote the software that was used to redistrict 7 states (congressional seats) and 7 cities (including Houston).
I learned a few things about targeted marketing. First, the degree of personalization makes a difference. Sending a letter to 'Occupant' resulted in far lower response rates, then a letter addressed to 'Mr. and Mrs. John Smith', so we tried to paste together names, occasionally pairing up a mother or daughter with good ole Dad as 'Mr. and Mrs.'.
Same thing with the content. If we could modify even small parts of a letter or a poll question based upon known data, the response was better.
And the second thing that made a difference was the quality of the piece. A cheap ass 3" x 5" post card, light weight, with single color printing didn't do near as good as job as an embossed letter (even announcing a grand opening)... something that looked like it was lovingly prepared, just for you.
Based on my experience, this is the track to be on. Create something that seems valuable, or maybe really is. Bringing that letter I mentioned to one grand opening we did, resulted in a free flea collar for your dogs or cats.These moo cards seem an interesting concept and will look further in to those this afternoon. In response my business partner is a graphic designer (very good one at that!), so everything will be of top quality design. One of our ideas is to print barcodes (QR codes) on them, which when scanned by a mobile can bring up a website, music page or youtube video of that particular artist.
If you could actually provide a free downloadable MP3 that would be good stuff and unusual. Or discounts to something or other if someone does actually go to a website to leave you some demographic information for next time. Or an extra sweetner by recommending a friend.
Good luck.