Are SOHOs Bringing You Down?
2. Select the business name field of your database. This helps identify consumers, but hardly helps identify SOHOs because they often have business names.
Fortunately, you have some additional tools at your disposal. Your service bureau can run the U.S. Postal Service’s delivery sequence file (DSF) or a similar product against both your housefile and prospects to identify addresses as business or residential. You then can further segment each of your mail-file selects based on this identification and append the identification to your housefile for future use.
A columnist for Retail Online Integration, George founded HAGUEdirect, a marketing agency. Previously he was a member of the Shawnee Mission, Kan.-based consulting and creative agency J. Schmid & Assoc. He has more than 10 years of experience in circulation, advertising, consulting and financial strategy in the catalog/retail industry. George's expertise includes circulation strategy, mailing execution, response analysis and financial planning. Before joining J. Schmid, George worked as catalog marketing director at Dynamic Resource Group, where he was responsible for marketing and merchandising for the Annie's Attic Needlecraft catalog, the Clotilde Sewing Notions catalog, the House of White Birches Quilter's catalog and three book clubs. George also worked on corporate acquisitions.
