Altair will be posting a series of blogs which will focus on the benefits of using a Primary Market Area (PMA) geographic selection to more effectively utilize limited marketing dollars.  Over the next few weeks we will address the building, implementation, measurement, and refinement of PMAs to help direct marketers improve marketing selection and increase Return on Investment (ROI).

Here is a brief overview to get you started:

• Defining your Primary Market Area (PMA) using Altair’s proprietary process brings the benefit of better geographic selection at the individual branch level.  The ROI at the location level will increase due to the ability to narrow or broaden the prospect pool based on the location’s ability to serve a particular customer.
• PMAs naturally account for surface road access, natural barriers and proximity to your other locations.   PMAs also outperform other methods of geographic selection.  By using your recently acquired customers as a base, we are able to select prospects individually using the most refined geo coding versus more blunt options such as radius or zip code.
• PMAs provide a relative measure of proximity across the branch network instead of utilizing a constant radius.
• Utilizing PMAs in conjunction with other targeting tools, such as a response model and selection criteria, allow you to further refine the selection of your best prospects.

Next, we dive into what you will need to build and how to build your PMA.

While doing some research for one of our clients, questions came up about zip code facts.  The United States Post Office (USPS) operates one of the largest infrastructures in the world but finding information on the system can be difficult.  In the spirit of sharing, here are some of the facts that Altair uncovered.

Do P.O. Boxes have their own zip+4?

YES

How many zip+4s are in the United States?

33,182,405

What is the average number of zip+4s within a zip code?

863.5

What is the lowest number of zip+4s within a zip code?

1

What is highest number of zip+4s within a zip code?

7,284

What are the average number of households within a zip+4?

4.5

What is the highest number of households within a zip+4?

4,584

What is the lowest number of households within a zip+4?

1

Most customer analytics projects should start with geography as geographic segmentation tends to be the most predictive elements in many direct marketing initiatives.

There are several key questions to consider when determining how to analyze your customers geographically:

1.  What mapping tool should you use?

2.  What type of segmentation should you employ?

3.  Will geographic segmentation work better than household segmentation for your offer?

Let’s take a brief look at each of these questions.

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