Create a scientific, empirical approach to marketing, which allows you to experiment, measure and improve, using a statistically sound, evidenced-based approach whilst scaling your budgets accordingly.

Conversion rates are slightly different, but response rates vary greatly by medium, and so do costs. Whether your response rates are 0.1%, 1% or 10%, the important questions are:

• Are they cost-effective?
• Are they better than your competition?
• Do they make a significant contribution towards your growth targets?

Unless you answer "Yes" to all 3 of the questions above, you're probably doing direct marketing as usual, which means that:

1. The costs usually justify the returns, but you could do better?
2. The returns maybe fantastic in percentage terms, but are they are often too small in absolute terms?
3. Most of your marketing spend is wasted due to imperfect targeting.

The practical issues with imperfect targeting and segmentation are:

A. Sometimes you are targeting "executive decision makers in enterprises over 200 employees" because it sounds right, rather than because you have any evidence that it's what works best.

B. Maybe you need to segment your data to target your messaging better? Or maybe you just need a way of sharing data with partners across geographies or verticals?