Adequate and preliminary research is desirable, perhaps essential, for effective communication. Communication research (or advertising research) is almost universally used in general marketing. And it is just as essential in direct mail marketing. To achieve the results that we want from our direct mail communications with our prospects we should first know as much as possible about their attitudes and behaviour.

 In your efforts to penetrate these consumer factors, your research should ideally concentrate on understanding their awareness, feelings, and dispositions to purchase. When you know and have an understanding of consumers’ attitudes, beliefs, values, motivations, aspirations and prejudices, you will have what you need to hone down to a fine direction for your direct mail marketing campaigns. It will assist you in formulating your creative ideas and strategies to something that will have real impact and, hopefully, maximise the profitability of your campaigns.

 There are many methods of conducting your communication/advertising research, each with own cost of implementation. Two low-budget research aids are “programmed learning” and “customer satisfaction survey”. You can read about these methods in our article, How Direct Mail Marketing Fits Into The Communications Process.