For the purpose of this clause we will be talking about direct mail, telecommerce and email merchandising. With direct mail, you can mail out a simple letter, a colourful mailing-card or small package with a sample of your product. Telemerchandising allows you to speak directly to your prospects and inform them of your product or service. An email campaign can be as simple or elaborate as you want, providing your prospects with quick golf links to your website.
You can also try to do all three! The key to merchandising is repetition. By reaching dead set your prospects using different merchandising methods, you strengthen your first substance. This also gives your prospects a variety of ways to respond, which will improve response rates.
Of course, the costs associated with each direct merchandising method will vary for each form. Regardless of the form you choose, there are few things to entertain when setting a budget for your direct merchandising campaign.
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The first cost is going to be the list you use. Unfortunately, there is no absolute cost to a direct merchandising list. Your list cost is going to vary supported what type (mail vs telecommerce vs email) of list it is, how many records are on the list, what data elements it contains (how targeted it is) and how it was sourced (compiled, subscriber, direct source, etc). There is also variance in costs from one list owner to another as their compilation methods vary too as cost and procedure involved in maintaining the truth of the data.
Based on list type, a posting list is commonly cheaper than a telecommerce list as it's just a name and posting address. A telecommerce list will have name, posting address too as a phone number. The extra cost for the telecommerce list is the extra element of the phone number.
An email list than has name, posting address and email address will commonly also be more than a simple posting lists. There are email lists that contain just name and email address, and these tend be cheaper. Depending on what rather merchandising campaign you are planning, you power want to steer clear of these email lists as the sourcing of this information power not be entirely reliable.
The more records on a direct merchandising list, the cheaper the cost per record. For example, you may pay $.05 per record when buying a posting list with 5,000 name vocation. That same list could cost $.02 per records if you purchase 1,000,000 name vocation. This is because list owners will offer volume discounts.
List owners also impose list minimums. If the number of records falls under their minimum, they will charge a flat rate. This means if they charge $250 for a minimum thousand records, and you only want 500 records, you will still have to pay the $250 minimum.
If you want more targeted lists, or specialty lists, these will cost a bit more. In general, the more data elements, the greater the cost. A simple list of females in Seattle is going to cost to a small degree a list of female nurses in Seattle with a good credit rating who own cats. Although a fine targeted list may cost more, they should perform better than a loosely targeted list. You will have to determine if the added cost is worth the improved response rates.
After the cost of the list, the next expense will be the delivery of your substance.
If you choose to send your substance out by direct mail, you will have to take the cost of printing and stamp into account. By using mailing-cards instead of envelopes, you can about cut your stamp rate in half. If you purchase a large enough posting list. you can mail out en masse, allowing you to qualify for bulk rates.
If you decide to use telecommerce, the size of your telecommerce list will help determine the cost of your campaign. If your list has only 1,000 name vocation you can probably call the list yourself, keeping the telecommerce campaign in house, which will apparently keep the costs down. If you are working with a large telecommerce list, you power want to consider contacting a call center. A single caller at a call center typically makes around 100 calls per 4-hour shift. Of course you'll have to ask out the service.
The costs associated with an email merchandising campaign are probably some of the lowest. You will have two options, you can either purchase an email list and send the emails out yourself or you can have the list owner deploy the list on your behalf. The size and the frequency of the emails should help you decide which option is best for you. If you plan on eposting to the list very frequently, it would be more cost effective to send them out yourself. However, if you plan on sending dead set a large list you power want the list owner to send the emails on your behalf as they have dedicated servers that are whitelisted allowing for better deliverability.
As mentioned before, there is no straight answer to what a direct merchandising campaign is going to cost. It's like going to a car lot and asking what a car costs. There are many variables that come upon the cost of a car - year, make, model, etc. It is the same is with direct merchandising. The best advice is to find a knowledgeable list factor who can explain all of these options and help lick the best direct merchandising campaign that will work for you. List factors don't charge for their services and will know which is the most cost effective method of direct merchandising for your product or service.
