Since the introduction of GDPR in May 2018, there has been increasing unease about what constitutes third party data and wariness about its uses. At Gecko, we have found that clients have become concerned about what direct mail they can send, and to whom. This has made it very difficult for businesses to reach customer acquisition targets via a direct mail campaign. But what if you could reach new customers, even without full data? Partially Addressed Mail offers a smart solution for tackling these issues without using comprehensive data because there are no personal data requirements, thus avoiding any GDPR concerns or issues.
The Gecko targeted acquisition mail tool allows your business to see where your current customers live and targets look-alike customers in the same street. It can also target customers who match your top demographic who may already have the inclination to buy into your brand.
How does it work?
Partially Addressed Mail software contains a Postcode Address File or PAF. This file contains 1.8 million UK postcodes, with more than 30 million addresses – both residential and business. The file is kept up to date by Royal Mail postmen and women, who check and update records daily.
The software uses two methods. The first allows you to ‘top up’ postcodes where you already have a lot of customers, adding potential customers in the same postcode areas; and the second finds ‘look-alikes’ that have similar attributes to your ideal customer, using geo-demographic targeting software. Using both ‘top up’ and ‘look-alike’ methods can provide good coverage of potential customers for all your direct marketing campaigns.
Gecko uses this software (under licence from Royal Mail), to match your customer data and allows you to target small groups of households by their full postcode. The software enables you to remove your existing customers from the data, so you are not wasting budget targeting those who already buy your products or services.
Partially Addressed Mail is an ideal marketing tool if your company already has an active buyer persona*. You provide us with your current customer data, and we will run it through our profiling software to establish the target audience for your campaign. Once we have your target audience, we run this data through the Gecko targeted acquisition mail tool which details new ‘top up’ or ‘look-alike’ potential customer addresses for your brand.
Personalising Partially Addressed Mail
You may think, that without the householder names to go with the addresses, your direct mail pack could be at a disadvantage. But you can still engage potential customers by using a default salutation that fits in with your campaign strategy, or one that reflects your brand. For example, you can use titles like, homeowner, gardening enthusiast, pasta lover, DIYer etc., any title that reflect your brand or specific campaign message. This ensures that your direct mail stands out from competitor communications and demonstrates its relevance to the householder immediately, hooking potential new customers for your business.
Gecko is a smart direct mail and digital printer with clever data processing staff, who can help you to plan your campaign and decide on nature of the pack based on any given outcome. You can use any type of mailer to attract attention, it doesn’t have to be boring. We have all the equipment on site to digitally print and enclose any direct mail pack so often advise our customers to do the exact opposite of boring! We have machines that can affix products like seed packets and teabags into your direct mail pack, so your mailer can be exciting and unique, making sure it gets the attention you are striving for.
Perfect Home is just one illustration of how Gecko’s targeted acquisition mail tool can help clients to target customers effectively using Partially Addressed Mail.
Increasing the response rate for our clients matters to us, so if you would like to see what the Gecko targeted acquisition mail tool and our data processing team can do for your direct marketing and customer acquisition campaigns, call 0113 391 0704 or email us at hello@gecko.co.uk.