Finding new customers can be incredibly expensive. In the Direct Marketing world, building your customer database often involves renting thousands of qualified names to receive just a few new customers. This is an essential part of building and maintaining sales; however, there is an easier source of qualified customers that many businesses often overlook – your own customer file.
If you don’t have a plan for reactivating customers (many companies do not), you should. Your customer database can often be rich with customers that are eligible for reactivation. The key is identifying those customers. Most often you are looking for customers that you haven’t contacted in quite some time, or customers who have made a large number of purchases in their lifetime.
Before mailing these customers you will want to ensure that your customer data is up-to-date and correct by taking a few basic steps towards better data hygiene. This starts by running your data through the NCOA (National Change of Address) to help you to identify customers that may have moved. Your customers may not be responding because they may not be getting your mail. Next, you will want to utilize address correction and validation to ensure your data is as accurate as it can be.
Your usual promotion may work for these customers, but for reactivation I would recommend using a special promotion that utilizes some sort of hook to bring these customers back. Offering larger incentives or discounts is a great way of enticing lapsed customers to return, and when you factor in the cost of finding a new customer it’s often cheaper to offer lapsed customers a great discount than it is to try and acquire a new one.
Maybe it’s time you had a look at your customer file. You may just find a wealth of lapsed customers waiting to be contacted.
JR Direct offers a variety of creative and data services for help with your next direct marketing promotion. Contact us today and find out how to get the most out of your direct mail dollar.
