Marketers who had trouble with history, geography and applied statistics in school were given another chance last month at List Vision, as three industry experts led a discussion on database segmentation.
Leo Yochim, president of Mailtronic Corp., traced mailers’ ability to segment their audience ever more finely over the past five decades, starting with state-level data and parsing it to the census block level.
But census data has holes in it, Yochim said. When he did a search on his own block, he expected to see an income level of $200,000. But the census information showed an average income of $36,000, as it included a nearby Navy base in its calculations. That said, the 2000 census is the first to offer online, downloadable information on consumers, he noted.
This data is essential for analysis and campaign refinement, added Bob Castle of Bob Castle Associates. But Castle warned that a campaign’s effectiveness as a result of segmentation can be offset by limiting the available universe. He advised that sophisticated segmentation techniques be used by brokers only after base selects are no longer able to make a list work.
When searching for less-mined names, Castle also advocated casting a skewed eye on lists, such as reaching out to males on a primarily female file.
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