Washington Mutual Finance plans to begin a direct mail program selling home equity loans to finely targeted segments.
A successful March test went to 100,000 customers, said Rick Erwin, managing director of R.R. Donnelley Financial, which is conducting the campaign. The July mailing will go out to both customers and prospects.
Washington Mutual faced a serious problem when it started thinking about the program: Falling response rates in the sub-prime home equity market, Erwin said during a session at Chicago DM Days & Expo.
The first thing the company did was to append demographics and summarized credit and lifestyle data. It then broke out segments within its responder base.
Next, it enriched the segment profiles with attitudinal data gleaned from R.R. Donnelley Financial’s consumer panel.
Through its panel, the company identified two kinds of customers: budget minded and blue collar.
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