According to our 2023 State of Direct Mail, 32% of marketers cite bad address data as a challenge when using direct mail. And given that 52% of consumers expect direct mail to be personalized (2022 State of Direct Mail Consumer Insights), customer and prospect address data simply have to be correct.
As Kim Courvoisier puts it, “It’s one of the hardest parts of running direct mail: Knowing who to send it to and where to send it.”
We know a thing or two when it comes to personalizing marketing campaigns and sending intelligent direct mail, but now we’re expanding our reach and helping build intelligent direct mail lists.
Recommended listening: Learn more about marketing data and lists on the Lobcast Podcast episode on that very subject: Marketing Data & Million Dollar Cocktails
We recently had a webinar that introduced everyone to Lob Audience. Our speakers were Kim Courvoisier, Senior Director of Content Marketing, and Eamon Barisone, Sales Engineer. Barisone was excited to speak on the webinar and get marketers to ask themselves, “What are some of the cool things you can do in direct mail that I might not be thinking about?”
Prefer to watch the recording? Find it here: Intelligent Targeting for Direct Mail Campaigns.
Let’s dive in and share some key highlights from the webinar introducing marketers to Lob Audience.
It’s all about the three A’s at Lob: Audience, automation, and analytics.
Lob already offers automation and analytics, and now we’re solving the audience portion. With Lob, you can build targeted audience lists, automate your direct mail, and analyze its impact.
There are three ways to increase your campaign effectiveness with Lob Audience:
By building targeted audience lists, you can send relevant and valuable direct mail.
The most common use case for Lob Audience is building targeted marketing lists for customer acquisition.
Not only can you get targeted lists of prospects, but you can personalize your creative to drive action. Dynamically insert maps based on the recipient’s zip code, images, and text, as well as use unique promo codes, URLs, or QR codes for better tracking and attribution.
Recommended reading: The Power of List Segmentation When It Comes to Direct Mail
As Courvoisier noted, “Direct mail just got a whole lot cooler!”
Courvoisier and Barisone were asked some great questions at the end of the webinar, so we included a few and the answers provided by Barisone.
That’s a really good question. The answer is that it’s a continual process. It’s a consistent, ongoing process of starting with the selection of the best consumer data sources. Running all that data through quality checks. Periodically running quality checks against that date for accuracy and deliverability. We never stop updating our list and checking for accuracy.
We do start by working only with proven data compilers who have robust data validation procedures on their end. We start with good data, but then from there, we can validate data sources against each other to capture any mismatches and measure the accuracy of those data sources. Finally, any list provided by Lob will be run through Lob’s own Address Verification technology, which leverages Lob’s own history of having delivered mail to over half of the households in the US, and we use that data to confirm that those addresses are deliverable.
We’re leveraging Lob’s own Adress Verification tools to ensure the deliverability and cleansing of every one of those addresses that we provide. That’s leveraging data that only Lob has access to. Additionally, we’re a compiler, so we can test and add and remove data sources based on performance. You can expect our data to continually improve. We are a direct mail company, and so we are testing this data specifically in the context of its accuracy and value for direct mail. That’s how you know you’re really getting the best data for direct mail when you work with Lob.
Watch the webinar recording or learn more about Lob Audience.
