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Direct Marketing Best Practice: Quality Over Quantity Always Rules
By Cynthia Fedor | July 6, 2009
Over the past couple of weeks, I was witness to a competition amongst two of my officemates. They were in a battle to see who could reach 2,000 followers on Twitter first. Every so often I’d hear about their strategies for building an audience or when they’d reached “milestone” quantities of followers. Let me tell you, this contest was ridiculous. Sure, they may have been growing in followers… but what kind?
I read a great post on Michelle’s Blog titled, “How Someone with 2,000 Twitter Followers Can Be More Powerful than a Person with 25,000.” In plain, common-sense English, she outlines why quality over quantity matters.
In almost every case, especially in direct marketing, this will be true. Whether you’re developing an email marketing campaign, lead-generation direct mail campaign, viral marketing campaign, etc.-scrutinize your lists and make sure your spending time and money on people that matter to your business and on people that care about what you have to say or offer. Not only are your chances for getting higher response rates better, but that audience will be the best evangelists for your brand.
Here are some quick tips that can help you develop quality through your direct marketing efforts:
- Try to pre-qualify incoming leads when building your prospect database. Segment leads based on where the lead was found and/or ask key questions to help determine if a particular lead is a cold, warm or hot prospect.
- Continue to segment lists, grouping responders from non-responders and those who engage from those that do not.
- When choosing an advertising venue, explore all targeting options available to you and ask yourself, “Will marketing through this venue offer me more general exposure or will it allow me to target prospects with specific qualities?”
As always, I wish you a productive week.