How direct marketing connects clients and customers

FRIDAY, NOV. 23: In an economy in which every dollar counts, it helps to be able to target would-be customers with precision.

Island Press — a sister company to the Bermuda Sun in the MediaHouse group of companies — has been running a successful direct marketing campaign for local businesses.

Chris Worsick, sales and marketing manager for the Island Press, explained: “This is targeted marketing that goes to a client’s customer base, rather than junk mail, which is random and goes to every household.”

Island Press takes a firm’s database of customer names and addresses and sends out mailers to them.

Mr Worsick said: “We can take the client list and split it. For example, we can separate males from females or make it age specific, if it’s created that way. The business can then send items targeted to men for its male clients or send the women information on items aimed at females.

“The key is that it’s targeted. If you bought a set of golf clubs, you won’t be surprised to get a golf brochure.”

Mr Worsick said the more specific a database, the more effective the direct marketing. An added bonus is that Island Press works in tandem with the Post Office to help lower costs.

“They offer us preferential rates, based on the fact that we pre-sort the items for them. If we print 6,000 flyers, we split them into postal codes. We’ll give them a bundle for Harrington Sound Post Office — their job is done.

“That’s why we get a preferential rate and our clients benefit from that — printing, mail sorting, delivering it to the mail process centre, all split into the correct batches. The Post Office loves it because they’re not sitting there with 6,000 flyers and sorting through them to decide where they go.”

The company has been doing direct mailing for  three years and “it’s definitely growing. People are seeing the benefit to it”.

Jamie Petty, general manager for Island Press, said: “In a world where the economy is tight, no one has extra money to just throw it away so it makes a lot more sense to figure out exactly who they want this to go to — no more, no less.

“It’s not like spaghetti where you throw something up against the wall and if it sticks, you’re in. Our marketing is targeted.”

Mr Petty said when Island Press started direct markeing, it was looking for a different product line: “We wanted to offer something different to our existing clients. Everyone knows who we are and what we do. We’ve been here since 1959 and we had the island’s first colour press, so we thought, ‘what’s the next thing are we going to be the first to do’ and we came up with this.”

Glenn Jones, business development and marketing manager for MediaHouse, said one of the benefits of direct marketing is “how personalized they can make it. If it’s a letter, it’s going to have your name on it”.

And it can helpfully narrow down specific demographics for clients: “For example, a jewellery store; if they give us a database that shows who the single guys are, we could send them advertisements for engagement rings and if they’re married, advertisements for anniversary gifts. At a very elementary level, one of the incredible benefits for busnesses is to have a good database.”