From Jim Berkowitz's CRM Mastery E-Journal: www.crmmastery.com/weblog/2006/12/13.html, Decmeber 13, 2006

Here are several excerpts from an article by John Coffey and Gene Palm originally written for the American Banking Association, but the recommendations offered apply to many other industries as well:

Wouldn't it be great if there were a way to automate your marketing efforts so you could know what to sell to whom and when? The good news is that this is not a fantasy. It's a reality that exists today as a "matrix mail" software application...
Briefly, a matrix mail application allows you to determine your entire year's marketing plan up front for targeted customers, and to determine the frequency of the contacts to these customers.

Once the matrix is defined, it literally runs automatically each month at the touch of a few buttons. With a matrix strategy in place, you can set up a sequential marketing plan with multiple contacts delivered to your customers through direct mail, e-mail, online banking and even the bank's ATM network.

What makes a matrix mailing unique is that it includes sequential contacts. It includes the selection of initial qualified customers, multiple contacts over a set period of time and repeated qualifications for each contact.
There are two major categories of matrix mailing-acquisition and retention. The most popular reason for conducting a matrix campaign is cross-selling.

For instance, you can develop a program for your new customers or for other targeted customers in order to increase the overall product penetration of your customer base.

One of the best ways to increase and measure customer relationships is to create a segmentation strategy for your customer base and send contacts to a portion of each segment throughout the year.

You can use retention matrix mailings to retain customers who have the highest risk of ending their relationship with you...
Develop a matrix mail program on paper by asking the following four questions: What targeted segments do I want to market to? What products and services do I want them to purchase? What is the sequence of these contacts, and over what time period should they receive the contacts? Who qualifies for the targeted segments and for each contact within the sequence?

The sequential nature of a matrix mail program is critical to success. In a comprehensive program, there are multiple segments with different priorities, each with their own unique sequence of contacts.

It is important to know that the matrix is a "smart" program. Based upon predetermined rules, if the customer has already purchased a product, then the program will "skip" this contact and proceed to the next contact in the sequence.
The effort of planning and automating your marketing campaigns in advance through matrix mail can really pay off.

For more detail, check out the complete source article.

For more information about the effectiveness of Matrix Mail, contact Mark Rodrigues, The Biltmore Group, 847-276-2676, 430 North Milwaukee Avenue, Lincolnshire, IL  60069  Mark@gobiltmore.com