JP2002024125A - Direct mail system for advertisement through electronic mail - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a direct mail system for advertisement through electronic mail, with which an advertisement matched to each of clients can be sent at satisfactory timing, an advertiser can easily send the advertisement from his/her own company or store in that case, the published advertisement is dispatched at desired timing without fail and the number of mail to be sent and advertisement costs or the like can be previously known when sending the advertisement. SOLUTION: This system has a server 2 for calling an entry requesting sending of direct mail to a client 10 on the side of an advertiser X, recording request data inputted thereby, further calling an entry desiring the reception of the direct mail to a client 20 on the side of a client Y and recording client data inputted thereby, the request data contain advertisement contents and selection conditions for selecting the destination to send, and the client data contain information to be selected on the selection conditions. On the basis of the input of the request data, at least one destination to send is selected on the basis of the selection conditions out of the client data recorded in the server 2 and the direct mail in which advertisement contents are inserted is sent to this selected destination to send by electronic mail.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a direct mail system for advertisements by e-mail, and relates to a customer who wants advertisement contents such as supermarket bargain information, new music release information, and ticket sales start information. ,
The present invention relates to a direct mail system for advertising by e-mail in which notification to a mobile phone of a customer is typically used by e-mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There are various forms of advertisements to customers, such as newspapers, magazines, flyers, and direct mails.

[0003] However, the same advertisement is sent to the entire customer.
Since it is performed uniformly, there are many mismatched advertisements when looking at each customer, and the effect as an advertisement is limited.

In addition, there is no timeliness to inform when it is desired to inform. Or, if you hit an ad when it's timely, it doesn't always look right.

[0005] Therefore, in order to solve the above problems, according to the present invention, an advertisement suitable for each customer can be hit at an appropriate timing, and at that time, an advertiser can easily hit an advertisement from his / her company or store. Another goal is to provide a direct e-mail system for e-mails so that the number of e-mails sent and the cost of the advertisements can be known in advance when the ad is hit.

[0006]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a direct mail system for advertising by e-mail. That is, a server for displaying a home page that prompts the client of the advertiser connected to the Internet to input a request to send a direct mail is prepared, and the request data of the input advertisement is recorded on the server. I did it. In addition, the customer data is entered into the server in some way and recorded. For example, the customer data of the company owned by the advertiser may be registered in the server in advance. The request data includes a selection condition for selecting a destination together with the contents of the advertisement, and the customer data includes information to be selected selected according to the selection condition. The contents of the advertisement may be in any form that can be transmitted by e-mail, such as the text of a product advertisement. Selection criteria include gender, age (age), single / marital status,
Address, house (owned house, apartment, etc.), hobby, occupation, etc. can be considered. The selected information of the customer data may be the same as this, or may be an item that the customer can easily report. For example, a postal code is input instead of an address.

[0007] When the request data is input, at least one or more destinations are selected based on the selection conditions input from the customer data recorded in the server, and the advertisement content is posted to the selected customers. It sends a direct mail by e-mail. The actual number of selected items is expected to be 5,000 or 10,000, but may be much more or less than this, and may be any number of one or more.

In the invention according to the second aspect, a server is provided which displays a home page for prompting the user to receive direct mail to a client on the customer side connected to the Internet. At the time of input, the selected conditions were also input, and these customer data were recorded on the server. Note that one of the input routes of the customer data is the present invention, and the customer data may be obtained only by this input route (input from the homepage), or may coexist with the customer data by the input route of another method.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the direct mail is transmitted to a portable device capable of receiving an electronic mail. Generally, a mobile phone corresponds to this, but is not limited to this, and may be a portable personal computer having a wireless telephone function or an application product of such a device. As a result, the direct mail is more likely to reach the customer directly, and the immediacy of the advertisement is higher than that of a newspaper advertisement or direct mail by mail.

[0010] In the invention according to claim 4, when the request data is input, the number of destinations selected based on the request data and / or the advertisement fee is notified to the client on the advertiser side. . The advertisement fee may be a pay-as-you-go system according to the data amount such as the number of transmissions and the number of characters of the advertisement content, but is not limited to this. As a response to this notification, the server is made to return to the server whether the request data is finalized or the selection conditions are corrected and input. Further, when the reply replies that the input is to be corrected, the selection conditions are corrected and input again, and the selection is performed again according to the conditions, and the number of new destinations and / or the advertisement fee is notified. . By repeating this, it is possible to place an advertisement based on the desired number of transmissions and the advertisement fee.

According to the invention described in claim 5, the direct mail for each customer is edited by accumulating the contents of the advertisement each time the customer is selected. For example, it is conceivable that some request data will be input by the time the direct mail is sent. If one customer who has several requests is selected from these request data, the customer will be selected in the first selection. It creates a direct mail message and edits the contents of the advertisement as an e-mail message. Thereafter, when the second and third cases are selected as the request data, the advertisement content is edited by accumulating the advertisement contents each time. Editing may be performed just before sending, or may be performed each time the selection is determined. As described above, if there is only one advertisement request that has selected one customer, the direct mail is edited with this one case, and if there is more than one, plural cases are edited. Editing may be performed simply by adding a plurality of requested advertising texts only by separating them, and may be devised in any arrangement that is easy to see.

[0012] In the invention according to claim 6, at the time of selection, whether the data amount of the direct mail to the customer who is a candidate for selection falls within the predetermined maximum character length of the electronic mail by accumulating the contents of the advertisement. It was decided whether or not. This is because it is often better to set the transmission limit for various reasons, such as restrictions on the receiving function of the receiving side, consideration to prevent customers from reading too long emails, and such reasons. Judgment whether it is within the transmission limit amount. If the result of the determination does not fit, the customer is excluded from the selection of the advertisement. This is based on the assumption that when a customer is selected as a destination candidate, other advertisements have already been edited and there is no room for their own advertisements due to restrictions on the amount of e-mail data. is there. Alternatively, the length of one e-mail that can be received differs depending on the characteristics of the client on the customer side, and this is to be accommodated. For example, if the personal computer is a client, there is no limit on the length of e-mail, and if it is a mobile phone, there is a limit. Depending on the telephone company, the length of data that can be handled varies from several hundred characters to about 1000 characters, depending on the telephone company.
Is different to cope with this.

[0013] In the invention according to claim 7, the request data includes a plurality of selection conditions with priorities. The number of destinations selected in the condition range based on the selection conditions from the first to the predetermined priority is adjusted by adjusting the width of the condition range. In the present invention, it is generally preferable to adjust the condition range as a part of the correction input by making the invention dependent on the invention described in claim 4. It does not need to be performed.

According to the invention of claim 8, the program means for inputting the desired number of transmissions from the client on the advertiser side, and adjusting the condition range to select the number of destinations satisfying the desired number is provided. Using. A program is prepared on the server, and while the condition range of the input selection condition with priority is changed widely, the condition range that satisfies the desired number is converged to the final number of transmissions.

[0015]

According to the above-mentioned means, according to the first aspect of the present invention, the advertisement destination can be limited to the customers who are suitable for the contents of the advertisement, so that the advertisement effect is improved and the cost is saved because there is no waste. Become. In addition, the advertiser can request an advertisement at any place where the client terminal is located, and can immediately send the requested advertisement. In this way, it is possible to request immediately when requested, and to send an advertisement direct mail immediately when desired, so that an advertisement suitable for the customer can be hit in a timely manner, which is excellent in immediacy and timing effect. For example, "Cancellation information" for time waiting services such as supermarket time services and admission tickets and reserved seat tickets
It is also effective in situations where breaking news is required. Of course, it is also useful in situations where breaking elements are not required. In addition, advertisement can be requested from anywhere, and for example, an advertiser can easily place an advertisement from his / her company or store, which is excellent in convenience.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the client of the customer side is prompted to input that he / she wants to receive the direct mail. With this input, an unspecified number of customers can be taken into this system. . As an advertiser, it is possible to select an appropriate destination from many customers, thereby improving the advertising effect. In addition, ordinary people can easily obtain desired advertisement information by becoming a customer, and convenience is improved in daily life.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, the direct mail is sent to a device such as a mobile phone, so that the customer can immediately know the device and is more excellent in immediacy. For example, by knowing at the office during the day when an advertisement such as the arrival of a desired new album or the release of a desired ticket has started, it is possible to stop at the store on the way home from the company and return home. It is better than traditional advertising methods that read advertisements and direct mail for the first time. In addition, the time service advertisement and the like cited in the example of the effect of claim 1 can be used to open the service.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the number of destinations of the selected advertisement can be known before the destination is determined.
The selection conditions can be modified for an insufficient number of transmissions, and the number of transmissions can be set to an appropriate number. In addition, since the advertising fee can be known in advance, it is easy to make a budget, and the advertising fee can be suppressed within the budget.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, since a plurality of advertisements are edited in one e-mail, the customer of the receiver can read the plurality of advertisements by one reception. In the case of one advertisement / one e-mail, it becomes complicated because a large number of e-mails are sent, and it becomes troublesome to read many e-mails one by one. Then such a thing can be avoided.

According to the invention described in claim 6, when the e-mail addressed to the customer is already full of other advertisements, it can be removed from the destination. Alternatively, if the advertisement is not long, but the advertisement is relatively long and the candidate client is a mobile phone, it is common that there is a character limit to one e-mail that can be received. If it exceeds the length, you can know this in advance and exclude it from sending.

According to the seventh aspect of the present invention, the operation of narrowing down the destination is facilitated. For example, if the number of destinations is too large when the selection condition is selected from those with the superiority of the condition of 1st to 5th, the condition range is narrowed to 1st to 4th and the selection is made again, By repeating such a process, the required number of cases can be obtained.

In the invention according to claim 8, such narrowing is automatically performed by a program, so that the destination is determined simply by inputting the desired number, and the input operation of the request data can be easily performed. Is done.

[0023]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, an embodiment of an electronic mail direct mail system according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

This system is managed and operated by a management organization A 'by an advertising company A. Figure 1 shows the management organization A '
Has a server 2 connected to the Internet 1 as shown in FIG. Advertiser X accepts a direct mail (hereinafter referred to as DM) transmission request of an advertisement by e-mail at client 10, while customer Y receives a request from client Y to send a predetermined advertisement. The client 20 accepts the request. And
By linking the advertisement request received from both of them with the request for acceptance, the advertisement D is displayed on the mobile phone 30 of the connected customer.
M is sent by e-mail.

The advertiser X first makes a contract to outsource the advertising business with the advertising company A, and thereafter makes individual advertising requests each time. Therefore, the server 2 has a homepage for contract application (hereinafter referred to as HP for contract) and a homepage for each advertisement request (hereinafter referred to as HP for advertisement request). Although the contract HP is not shown, the terms and conditions of the contract are displayed, and the name and address of the advertiser can be input. The advertisement requesting HP 11 is provided with input fields in a layout as shown in FIG. 2, that is, condition fields 12, 12,... For inputting selection conditions, and a date field for inputting advertisement sending date and time. 13 and a time field 14, and an advertisement input field 15 for an advertisement text to be sent. Condition column 12, 1
A large number of items such as gender, age, occupation, residential area, etc. are prepared in 2,..., And the necessary condition fields 12 are sequentially displayed on the screen while scrolling the screen, and predetermined inputs are made.
In most of the condition columns 12, pull-menu buttons 12a are prepared, and input candidates for the respective condition columns 12, 12,... Are displayed in a menu. For example, in the column of gender, “male”, “female”, and “all” are displayed in a menu.

Further, since the customer Y applies for a request to send a predetermined advertisement to the advertisement company A, the server 2 registers a homepage 21 for registration (hereinafter referred to as a registration HP2).
1) is prepared. The registration HP 21 has a layout as shown in FIG.
And inquiry fields 23, 23,... For inputting what kind of advertisement is desired to be sent. Also, in this HP21, direct mail is sent four times a day and has a strong breaking element. For this reason, it is more suitable to receive direct mail on a mobile phone than on a personal computer at home. It is informed that the e-mail address at the time of registration recommends a mobile phone address. The customer's name and address are not entered. This gives the customer anonymity and makes it easy to register because there is no risk of leaking their personal information without notice. Even if the advertiser does not specify the individual name, There is no problem if you do not know the name and address as long as the advertisement arrives reliably. There are many inquiry fields, so that you can enter postal code, area code, gender, age, hobby, occupation, advertising field you want to send, advertiser you want to send if you know the company name etc. The input from these is used when selecting an advertisement sending destination as a selected condition. When a customer living in a certain area is to be selected, the customer is selected using a zip code or an area code.

Next, a description will be given of a method of using the present system, which also serves as a description of components of the system. First, a home page (hereinafter referred to as a guide HP 3) for guiding the system itself is set up on the server 2, and the process is divided into respective processes as shown in FIG. In addition, a link to the guide HP3 is put on a general public website. Advertisement advertisements and customer registration advertisements are posted on the guide HP3. The advertiser first enters into a contract with an advertising company for a contract HP4, and then an advertisement request for individual advertisements. A link to the service HP 11 is pasted, and further a link to the registration HP 21 for the customer is pasted, and the following processing is performed according to the flow of FIG.

Advertiser X first proceeds to contract HP4. Although not shown, the contract HP4 displays an outline of the system, the contract terms between the advertising company and the advertiser, and a contract application input field. The advertiser who understands the outline description and the contents of the terms and conditions and wishes to make a contract inputs necessary items such as a name and an address in the displayed application input fields, and presses a send button to apply for a contract. The advertising company A, which has received this contract application via the Internet, mails the contract 5 together with necessary documents, and receives a return of the signed and stamped contract 5 from the advertiser X. The advertising company A checks the document returned with the contract 5, and if there is no problem, the advertising business consignment contract is concluded, and the ID and the password are mailed again with the copy of the contract. The ID and the password are used when entering the advertisement requesting HP 11 described later.

On the other hand, the customer enters the registration HP 21 via the link.
Proceed to. When proceeding to the registration HP 21, a brief description of the system is first displayed, and if registration with this system is desired, the process proceeds to the registration HP 21 shown in FIG. 3. Here, the customer's e-mail address is entered, and the selection condition for receiving the advertisement suitable for him is entered from the inquiry column 23. As a result, the customer data of the customer is registered in the server 2 and used for selecting the destination of the advertisement. Thereafter, the advertisement continues to be sent until the registration is canceled. At the time of registration, a cancellation ID is issued on the registration screen, but the cancellation of the registration of the customer can be performed using the cancellation ID. It will be deleted and no DM will be sent.

Each advertisement request is made by an advertiser's advertisement request H
At the request of P11. The advertisement request HP 11 is entered using the ID and password issued at the time of contract. In the advertisement request HP 11, the selection condition 12 and the advertisement sending date and time 13,
14 and the ad text 15 are input. Input fields for the selection conditions are prepared on the screen for each condition item, and are sequentially input to these item columns. If unnecessary items are left blank, they will be excluded from the selection conditions. There are a date column 13 and a time column 14 in the input column of the advertisement sending date and time. DM is morning, noon,
At 3:00 pm, it is sent on a regular basis four times in the evening, and when an ad desired date is entered, any one of these four times is designated. In addition to any of the four times, a selection of "closest time zone" can be made. The advertisement text to be sent is input from the advertisement input field 15, and this advertisement text is directly edited into a direct mail. After inputting the above, the data is transmitted to the server by pressing the transmission button 16, and the process proceeds to selection of a destination described below.

When the above request data is sent, the server selects a customer corresponding to the selection condition. If the data value of the inquiry to be input by the customer and the data value of each selection condition to be input by the advertiser are aligned, it is sufficient to simply look at the character matching. For example, regarding the age, if both the customer and the advertiser input "20s" and "30s", it is possible to make a decision by judging whether they match or not. On the other hand, in a case where the customer inputs "age" and the advertiser inputs "age", a pre-processing for dividing each age into "20s" and "30s" is performed. Every time the selection process, 26 years old → 20s, 32
You may be classified as aged → 30s. Alternatively, the advertiser inputs the address of the customer by a certain area name, and when selecting a customer from this, the customer corresponding to the postal code (or area code) of the area is selected. When there is a difference between the data input by the customer and the data that is easy for the advertiser to input, the selection may be made through some kind of conversion processing.

The above selection is performed for each selection condition, and after selecting customers satisfying all the selection conditions, the number of selected destinations and the advertising fee fluctuating according to the number are determined by the client on the advertiser side. Notify as display on terminal. The advertiser who confirms this notification returns to the server 2 as a response to the notification, whether the request data is confirmed with the “send” button 16 or the selection condition is corrected and input with the “redo” button 17. If you select "Redo", you can check and display the previous selection conditions, correct the selection conditions you think this is on this display screen, remove it from the conditions,
Alternatively, a correction input such as addition of a new condition is performed, and re-establishment and re-notification of the number of destinations and the advertisement fee due to this are performed. This process is repeated to select a desired number of destinations.

When inputting the selection conditions, priorities may be assigned to the respective selection conditions, and the destination may be selected in a condition range according to the selection conditions from the first to the predetermined priority. . In this case, for example, selection is first made under all the selection conditions, and when the number of cases is too large, the condition range is changed by sequentially removing conditions having lower priority. While adjusting the condition range in such a manner, the number of cases is confirmed and displayed, and when the desired number is reached, the selection requirements are determined.

Alternatively, the desired number of transmissions may be input as part of the request data, and the program may be used to adjust the condition range. For example, in this program, at the beginning of the process, the selection process is performed with the condition range being maximized (that is, a customer that satisfies all the selection conditions from the first priority to the lowest priority is selected). If the number of cases at this time is larger than the desired number, one of the lowest-order conditions is removed, and selection is performed again within a narrowed condition range. With such program processing, the condition range is sequentially narrowed, and the number of destinations satisfying the desired number is selected.

After the destination is selected in any of the above,
The advertisement text is edited in a direct mail addressed to each selected customer. If there is no direct mail addressed to the customer, a new e-mail is created, and the ad text is copied in the e-mail with the advertiser name at the top. If there is already a direct mail addressed to the customer, there is some kind of ad text in it, and after the ad text, a new ad text is copied starting with the advertiser name Thus, the advertisement content is accumulated and edited. In addition, the customer receiving the advertisement can view each advertisement with the advertiser name as a delimiter mark.

When the advertising text is accumulated, the character string is added to the direct mail each time, so the electronic mail itself becomes longer. Therefore, it is necessary to check the length of the e-mail each time it is accumulated, and to make the length not too long (a length that fits in a predetermined maximum character length of the e-mail).
This may be due to eliminating the burden of having customers read long sentences, or worrying that if they are too long, they may not be able to read them. Therefore, it is necessary to pay within this limit. Since this character length varies depending on each telephone maker, the shortest character length among them may be set in advance as the upper limit of the character length of the electronic mail. This check may be performed at any stage, but may be performed during the selection. In other words, how many characters have already been edited in the e-mail to the selection candidate customer who entered the selection, and by accumulating the advertisement text of the request data that is currently being processed, whether or not it exceeds the maximum character length Is determined. If the judgment is caught, the selection is completed and the selection is completed.

In this way, the direct mail for each customer is edited, and the mail is transmitted collectively at a predetermined sending time. Since a direct mail corresponding to the sending date and time is separately created and edited for each customer, a direct mail by an e-mail created for the predetermined time is sent at a predetermined time. In this system, advertisements can be requested up to three days in advance, so a maximum of 12 e-mails per customer (4 e-mails / day x 3
The direct mail of the day is created and it is possible to wait for sending.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. As for customer data, customer data input from the homepage and customer data that the advertiser has accumulated independently in daily business are registered in the server, and when selecting a customer, whether to select from either of these two customer data, Alternatively, it may be possible to select whether to select from both. Further, once the selection condition is determined, the selection condition pattern may be recorded and stored in the server, and thereafter, the advertiser may be able to use the pattern repeatedly. A large number of such selection conditions are stored for each advertisement content, and when an advertisement is requested, an appropriate pattern is designated and selected from the stored selection condition patterns, so that it is not necessary to determine each selection condition. If the number of items to be selected is not as desired due to fluctuations in customers even under the same selection conditions, the selection conditions may be corrected at that point and stored.

[Brief description of the drawings]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is an outline of the present invention shown in an embodiment, showing a relationship between an advertiser, a customer, and an advertising company centering on the Internet.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an advertisement request homepage.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a registration homepage.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of screen transition of the system of the present invention, and also shows how each screen relates to an advertising company / server.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 server 3 guide homepage 4 contract homepage 10 advertiser side client 11 advertisement request homepage 12 condition column 20 customer 21 registration homepage 22 inquiry column

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. A system for sending direct mail of an advertisement by e-mail to a customer, wherein the system prompts an advertiser client to input a request to send the direct mail, and requests the client to input the request. A server that records data and further records customer data input by a predetermined method, wherein the request data includes selection conditions for selecting a destination together with advertisement contents, and the customer data includes the selection conditions. Based on the input of the request data, at least one destination is selected from the customer data recorded in the server based on the selection condition, and the selected destination is selected. Sending a direct mail by e-mail formed by posting the contents of the advertisement in the e-mail Advertising direct mail system. 2. The electronic mail according to claim 1, wherein the server prompts the client on the client side to input a request for receiving the direct mail and records the input customer data. Advertising direct mail system. 3. The direct mail system for advertising by electronic mail according to claim 1, wherein the direct mail is transmitted to a portable device. 4. When the request data is input, the number of destinations and / or the advertisement fee selected based on the request data is notified to the client on the advertiser side, and the request is sent as a response to the notification. When the server confirms whether the data is to be fixed or the selection condition is to be corrected and input, the server sends a reply to the effect that the correction input is to be performed. The advertisement direct mail system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a notice of an advertisement fee is given. 5. The direct mail for each customer is:
The electronic mail direct mail system according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the advertisement content is accumulated and edited each time the customer is selected. 6. In the selection, when accumulating the advertisement content in an e-mail to a candidate customer to be sent, it is determined whether or not the advertisement can be accommodated in a predetermined maximum character length of the e-mail. The direct mail system for advertising by electronic mail according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the customer is excluded from the selection when there is no customer. 7. The request data includes a plurality of selection conditions with priorities, and adjusts the number of destinations selected in a condition range based on the selection conditions from the first to the predetermined priority. The direct mail system for advertising by e-mail according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the range is adjusted. 8. A program means for inputting a desired number of transmissions from a client on the advertiser side, and adjusting a condition range to select a destination of a number satisfying the desired number. 8. A direct mail system for advertising by e-mail according to claim 7.