Direct Marketing Glossary

Back End The process of completing a campaign beyond list procurement including printing, lettershop, and fulfillment or calling and customer response.

Bulk Mail Second, third and fourth-class mail serviced on a non-preferential basis by the USPS.

Carrier Presort Mail identified by postal carrier route number for cost-efficient mail delivery.

CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) A system of the USPS which tests the accuracy of software used to process mailing lists. When the software meets the USPS standards, it is said to be CASS-certified software.

CDS (Computerized Delivery Sequence) Similar to CASS, this is a USPS system that ensures a certain level of accuracy and comprehensiveness in an address file. A CDS-qualified files receive maximum postal discounts, especially for saturation or high-density mailings.

Census Block, Census Block Group, Census Tract A census-defined area of geography. The average block has a population of about 25 persons and there are about 7,000,000 blocks in the US. The average block group has a population of about 750 persons and there are over 230,000 block groups in the US. The average tract has a population of about 4,000 persons and there are over 62,000 tracts in the US.

Cheshire Label In direct mail, a mailing label that is computer printed on continuous forms specially designed for affixing to envelopes by a Cheshire machine.

Cleansing The process of formatting address information to the standard U.S. Postal Service format and verifying it against U.S. Postal Service data to ensure it is a valid address.

Cluster Analysis The science of comparing a series of variable profiles of one group to that of another group and progressively discriminating and associating the groups into homogeneous clusters.

Cluster Sampling In research, collectively selecting a target and variables.cluster selection A choice of segments, usually based on their defined characteristics, which most closely match a target audience.

Coding The structure of characters used to classify characteristics of an address on a list, a campaign, transactions with a customer, etc.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer, whether it is sales or service related.

Cross Section A group of names and addresses selected to be representative of an entire list. Also see nth selection or random selection.

Database A collection of data, stored on a computer medium, that can be used for reporting, segmenting targets, or exporting lists.

Database Marketing Targeted marketing that makes use of customer data captured through customer transactions and communications.

De-dupe In a list or table, to identify names and/or addressed that appear more than once and eliminate these duplications.

Demographic The statistics describing factual aspects of a target market, such as age, sex, race, religion, income, special interests and geographic location.

Direct Mail Promotional material delivered to consumers in the mail.

Direct Marketing An interactive system of marketing which uses one or more advertising media to affect a measurable response and/or transaction at a given location. Direct marketing is an aspect of total marketing that is characterized by measurability and accountability, with heavy reliance on lists and data.

Direct Response Marketing directly to consumers, by mail, catalog, or other home delivery, attempting to solicit orders by mail or a toll-free number.

Geo-coding The process of assigning geographic designations to name and address records.

GIS (Geographic Information System) A system of capturing, checking, integrating, analyzing, and displaying data about the earth that is spatially referenced. Normally includes a spatially-referenced database and appropriate applications software.

Hygiene The process of correcting or removing names, phone numbers and addresses from a list.

Index The ratio of a specific group against the national or market-area.

List Broker A specialist who makes arrangements for one company to rent the list(s) of another company.

Market Segmentation Dividing the total heterogeneous market into smaller, homogeneous segments based on customer relationship or behavior, geographic, demographic, psychographic, and/or lifestyle variables.

Merge/Purge To combine two files into one in such a way that duplicates are recognized and eliminated.

Model A symbolic representation of reality. In quantitative forecasting methods, a specific model is used to represent the basic pattern contained in the data. An example is a regression model.

NCOA (National Change of Address) The US Postal Service's system which consolidates and standardizes all address changes in the US. Licensees are updated every two weeks.

Predictive Modeling A statistical process which estimates the value of a dependent variable, given data values of predictor variables. Used to pre-determine response rates of mail offers or telemarketing campaigns based on historical response data.

Prizm A geodemographic targeting product developed by Claritas. Based on the theory that people of similar socioeconomic status live in geographic clusters (i.e., birds of a feather flock together), the product attaches two-digit cluster codes at the Census block group level.

Profiling To build a picture of a target customer by utilizing information from various sources including customer transactions and demographic data.

Psychographics The data describing the psychology of specific target audiences. Generally distinguished from geodemographic data (e.g., Prizm clusters), which describes lifestyle traits of specific target audiences based on where they are located.

Purge The process of eliminating duplicates and/or unwanted names and addresses from a list.

Response Device The turn-around document included with a mailing which identifies the prospect by source code, offer, and name/address.

Retention The maintenance of a customer relationship over a given period of time.

Sample A finite or limited number of observations or data values selected from a universe or population of such data values.

Scoring The process of using the correlation derived from a model to project and forecast potential or propensity. For example, the potential to penetrate a market or the propensity to purchase a subscription.

Segmentation The practice of dividing a customer base into categories or marketssuch as income level, geographic location or subscription type.

SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) The U.S. Department of Commerce's categorization of businesses.