Hillstrom's Zip Code Forensics!!!

Would you be interested in being one of ten companies that get to participate in the launch of a new product, for free?

I am close to completing the development of a product called "Hillstrom's Zip Code Forensics". The product segments every zip code in the United States based on the sales potential of the zip code (high potential, low potential), and the marketing preference of the zip code (traditional/catalog or online/digital).

At this time, there are four segments, based on the combination of descriptors listed above.

Early tests indicate significant potential! The catalog marketer or e-mail marketer would be able to not mail unprofitable names in break-even segments, increasing profitability in the process. I envision the catalog marketer overlaying the segmentation against marginal co-op/outside lists and unprofitable housefile segments. I see e-mail marketers decreasing frequency among traditional/catalog segments. Multichannel marketers will be able to clearly demonstrate that they are getting a better mix of multichannel customers if traditional/catalog and online/digital segment counts are both increasing, especially in high-potential zip codes.

Here is a link to a white paper outlining Hillstrom's Zip Code Forensics.

If you would like to be one of the ten companies that gets to participate (for free) in the final testing and development of the product, please contact me. All participants will send me anonymous zip code level sales data, by channel, for the past twelve months, and will get to use the product for free for at least one year if the algorithm becomes a commercially viable tool.

The product will be tentatively priced at $5,000/year should it be launched commercially. Based on initial tests, many companies who execute direct marketing campaigns will profitably benefit from the segmentation scheme.

E-Mail Marketing And Geography: Multichannel Opportunities

In e-mail marketing, we obsess about simply getting a marketing message to first arrive in the inbox of a customer, then to get the image to render properly. Assuming we can accomplish these challenging issues, we focus on the offer and subject line text, trying to maximize click-through and conversion rates.

Seldom do we tailor the message based on geography.

This is a map of the greater Seattle metropolitan area. Green zip codes are those that perform best for this brand, while yellow zip codes perform worst.

The magic of e-mail marketing is that separate messages can be created, based on geography.

The customer who lives in Easton, sixty miles southeast of downtown Seattle in the Cascade Mountains, is not likely to shop in your store --- heck, in winter, this customer simply cannot get across the mountain pass. Why advertise a store message to this customer?

Conversely, the customer living in Belltown has close to a thousand shopping opportunities within ten miles of her home, and can easily walk to several hundred stores. How might the marketing message be different for this customer than for the customer living in Easton?

What about the customer living in Bremerton, just ten miles west of Seattle ... but a two hour trip due to the wait to get on to a ferry to get to Seattle? Maybe buy online / pickup in store is an option, given that this customer works in Seattle?

Zip code data is FREE! You maintain the information for every customer who purchases from your online and phone channels, and in many cases, you have this data for retail purchasers as well.

Each zip code can be classified across different dimensions.

• Urban, Suburban or Rural.
• High Spending, Average Spending, Low Spending Zip Codes.
• Distance From Closest Store.
• Store Preference.
• Channel Preference: Phone, Website, Store

E-Mail marketing strategy is crafted for each categorization. You're likely to see a ten or twenty percent increase in e-mail marketing performance based on versions of e-mail campaigns targeted to customers having different zip code characteristics.