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Optimizing Marketing Performance: Linking the MacroMonitor to Markets, Customers, and Prospects MacroMonitor Marketing Report Vol. VI, No. 11 October 2004

This report highlights a tactical extension of the MacroMonitor through the application of Empirics, a product-specific, predictive segmentation tool. Developed by Information Asset Partners, an analytic product-development and marketing firm, this innovative direct marketing tool builds on MacroMonitor's 11 batteries of nearly 120 survey questions relating to U.S. households' propensity to buy specific financial products and to use various types of delivery channels.

Empirics measures buying propensity for specific financial products—including annuities, credit products, life insurance, mutual funds, and other investment products—at the census-block group level. It segments the target market into five purchase-propensity segments: Most Likely, Highly Likely, Likely, Somewhat Likely, and Unlikely. For specific financial products and services, Empirics answers the dual questions "Who is most likely to buy?" and "Where do buyers live?" Empirics identifies different propensities for the same block group depending on the financial product or service being marketed.

For example, as Table 1 shows, a specific Buffalo, New York, area has good potential for marketing annuities and financial seminars. The same geographic location is not a good target market for term life insurance. Specifically, Block 8003 is a prime market for long-term–care insurance (Most Likely). Empirics also identified the contiguous Blocks 7002 to 7004 as Highly Likely to buy annuities. And whereas attending financial seminars is of overall interest to these block groups, Block 7003 will not likely respond positively to a financial-seminar invitation to the same degree as the other contiguous neighborhood block groups.

In this report, we show how institutions can use Empirics to:

  • Identify the best prospects at the census-block level for specific financial products
  • Determine the best prospects' institutional preferences in obtaining the target financial product
  • Identify cross-selling prospects among the institution's current customers
  • Support operational decision making involving sales-staff allocation and alignment of staff performance metrics with the markets they serve.

Direct marketing campaigns have now moved from simple mass marketing to direct one-on-one communication with a targeted consumer. To optimize the institution's resources, the marketing staff needs to identify and target receptive consumers cost-effectively with the right products, features, prices, and marketing messages. Empirics offers financial marketers—as a tactical extension to the MacroMonitor database—an off-the-shelf solution to improving direct marketing performance with speed and efficiency.

Empirics Segmentation for Buffalo, New York, Area

Empirics Segmentation for Buffalo, New York, Area