The single most effective way to improve your return on investment for print advertising is by carefully selecting to which customers you send your materials. This process is referred to as market segmentation and involves defining your most lucrative customers in terms of their demographic information. Once well defined, you can either only market to specific customers or develop print advertising campaigns for each market segment.

Target with precision
Know your customer. This is the most basic marketing rule and it involves a lot more than simple demographic information. Since print advertising campaigns should be built on solid data, a good start is to know what kinds of customers you have.

Carefully defining your customers will enable you to target them with precision. Wouldn’t you rather hit the bull’s eye with a single shot rather than hitting the target with a shotgun blast of print advertising? Defining your customers helps you know where the bull’s eye exists, and then you can begin crafting print advertising to connect with these customers.

Basic segments
What are some of the basic market segments? You can actually segment, or divide, your customers into thousands of possible segments, but below are a few of the more common groups along with a few tips for fine-tuning your print advertising.

• Age – Different ages have different needs and interests. If your customers tend to be a specific age, study the types of advertising that may connect with these people.
• Gender - In the US, there are still gender roles to which people respond. If you observe a strong trend towards a particular gender, you may want to consider developing print advertising to cater to this group.
• Location – You may only operate in a small region, so many of your customers may tend to come from a particular zip code. If your customer base is spread out, you may find that there is still a concentration within a particular region. Either way, you can focus your print advertising in a tight area.
• Income – You may observe that your customers tend to come from a particular income group. If that is the case, you could tailor your print advertising to appeal to this income level.
• Vocation – Don’t forget to look for trends in particular jobs. If you notice a trend in a particular vocation, you may be able to uncover a whole new group of potential customers who all work together.

Keep in mind that you can mix and match segment. For example, your ideal customer might be a female, age 45, who is a stay-at-home mom. Knowing this information can help you develop focused print advertising that can expand your customer base and dramatically improve your return on investment.