25 Direct Marketing Terms and Acronyms

1. AIDA: Gain ATTENTION, Create INTER­EST, Build DESIRE, and Request ACTION. This acronym is a dynamic formula for writing great sales pieces.
2. B2B: Business-to-Business. Refers to a type of business that markets to other businesses, rather than to consumers. An example would be a com­pany that sells imprinted promotional items to businesses.
3. B2C: Business to Consumer. Refers to a type of business that markets directly to consumers. An example would be a company that sells clothing to individuals (L.L. Bean).
4. Backend: The backend is the series of products or services that you offer to your buyers after they’ve made their initial purchase. The goal of keeping in contact with them is to help build a larger lifetime value. Your backend can be sales oriented (offering products or services) or retention based (sending information that helps keep your customers in­formed and interested in you).
5. BMC: Bulk Mail Center. United States Post Of­fice mail processing plant that handles bulk mail.
6. BRC: Business Reply Card. Postage-paid card that you include in your sales pieces or products that makes it easy for your customers to order. Usually one side will have a reply form and the other side will have specially formatted address information.
7. BRE: Business Reply Envelope. Postage-paid envelope, pre-addressed with the seller’s address, that buyers can use to send in a reply form or order form.
8. CTA: Call to Action. The part of a sales piece that tells the reader exactly how to respond to the offer, and provides an easy way to do so, for example by calling a toll-free number. Often the instructions include a time frame in which the response must be made to receive some special benefit.
9. CPA: Cost Per Acquisition. The amount the ad­vertiser must pay in order to gain each new cus­tomer.
10. CPO: Cost Per Order. The amount the advertiser must pay to gain each new order.
11. CR: Conversion Rate/Ratio. The percentage of people who receive a sales piece who actually go ahead and place an order. The higher the CR, the more successful the campaign.
12. CRE: Courtesy Reply Envelope. An envelope, pre-addressed with the seller’s address, that buy­ers can use to send in a reply form or order form. Unlike the BRE, which is postage-paid, customers must add their own postage to a CRE. 
13. DMA: Direct Marketing Association. The pro­fessional organization for people in the Direct Marketing business. Their website (https://thedma.org/ ) is a great source of direct marketing tools and information.
14. FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions. A list of questions, with answers, that your customers often ask about your business. If you have a website, you could post it there. You can also give copies to your call center operators, or put it in your sales mate­rial.
15. LRA: List Rental Agreement. This agreement will specify in writing all the details of the arrangement between you (the renter of a mailing list), and the list owner/manager.
16. LTV: Lifetime Value. The amount of money a customer spends for your products over the course of his/her relationship with your company.
17. Merge-Purge: Using data-processing software to combine two or more mailing lists in order to remove duplicate names.
18. mIn: Marketing Information Network (now of­fered through Nextmark). Offers information on thousands of mailing lists and provides numerous ways to search for the ones you are look­ing for. Reach them by going to https://lists.nextmark.com/market.
19. NCOA: National Change of Address File. List of people who have moved within the last three years. Running the NCOA list against your mail file will help insure that you are mailing to cur­rent addresses.
20. RFM: Recency, Frequency, Monetary Value. A formula for determining the potential value of customers on your mailing list. Recency = When was the last order? Frequency = How many orders have they placed with us? Monetary Value = What is the value of their orders? Customers who have purchased more recently, more frequently, and have spent more with your company are your best prospects for future direct marketing campaigns.
21. ROI: Return on Investment. Measures the success of a direct marketing campaign by looking at the profit made compared to the cost of running the campaign.
22. SRDS: Standard Rate and Data Source. Provides information on over 100,000 mailing lists, search­able by numerous criteria. You can reach them by going to their website: www.srds.com.
23. SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. A direct marketing analysis method marketers use to size up their current situation as a prelude to creating and planning a direct mail campaign.
24. USP: Unique Selling Proposition. The unique features and benefits that make your product or service better than anything offered by your competitors.
25. USPS: United States Postal Service. Check out their website for great information on postal rates and regulations: www.usps.com.

Go ahead and bookmark this list. Eventually you’ll have these all memorized. Until then, this list will keep you sounding professional and experienced in the world of direct mail marketing.