How To Use Neighborhoods: Map Your Way To Success

Direct Marketing at the resident level has always been a numbers game.

 

Time and time again, it’s been proven: you can stack those numbers in your favor.

Yet again and again, people who are sure they’re going to succeed…fail to do this.

If your marketing isn’t working, it’s almost always for one or more of three reasons:

1. You’re not marketing often enough.
2. You don’t really have good data – your names, addresses and contact information isn’t up-to-date.
3. You really aren’t targeting your market with enough accuracy.

It’s amazing how many times people and companies buy bad data – from sources that are really unethical. Sadly, many of these unscrupulous sources are big industry names and are still regarded as having high standards.

They often tout their products as “new” and “best.” However, the proof is in the response you get from their lists.

 

No wonder some data buyers have given up and speak of the “death” of direct marketing.

The good news is, this means there’s less competition for those of us who really know how effective direct marketing still can be.

To succeed, you must market often to keep your brand and offers in front of customers and prospects.

And of course, you must use up-to-date data.

Finally, you must target the right people.

One of the most powerful ways to target the right people is…neighborhoods.

Most companies let you create lists by zip code boundaries.

But is this always a good way to find your prospects?

Remember, zip codes were invented for the postal worker, not the people living in the neighborhood.

Zip codes can include everything from multi-family, to tract homes, to mansions and everything in between.

If you drive through some neighborhoods, you’ll see.

Just when you see a few modest homes, suddenly you see the neighbors have homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions more.

Imagine a row of homes along a golf course. There’s probably at least someone in each home interested in golf, right?

What if this row of homes was, (as it often is), split down the middle by two zip codes.

One of these zip codes has mostly homes along a lake, and they love boats.

The other zip code has a lot of slums.

What if your company spent money doing a saturation mailing, advertising golf items…to the zip code containing mostly slums?

Granted, in some cases you might be able to avoid wasting money like this by choosing the right demographics – that is, if the data provider happened to model their data right.

Ask anyone, but it seems no one knows where their zip code boundary is. However…

Everybody knows where their neighborhood is.

Imagine, now, since you know the neighborhoods – you could draw a line around just the homes you know have a certain interest. Or in a certain exact location.

You instantly get a list of contact information about just those homes.

And, the contact info was updated that same week. (After all, old neighborhoods change and new ones spring up all the time.)

How would this boost your marketing efforts?

Well… and you knew this was coming, right? 🙂  …you CAN do this.

This is why we, at National Auto Data, are passionate about providing you with the right marketing solutions – and proving that you and your marketing can succeed with the right data.