If you live in the Toronto area, you may have heard from Boris by now. He'll call up and, in his thick Eastern European accent, amenably advise you that if you're in the market for movers, he's the man for the job. Cool if you need him, but irritating if you keep receiving the pitch and have no intention of going anywhere anytime soon.

Thanks to increasingly sophisticated database systems, marketers can have a better shot at targeting folks at precisely the right moment - which makes all the difference.

"Life stage" or "life event" marketing can definitely lead to an increase in sales, says Geoff Linton, VP of Guelph, Ont.-based e-mail publishing firm Inbox Marketer and professor of direct marketing at Kitchener, Ont.'s Conestoga College. But, he adds, despite significant sleuthing advances in the database marketing field, not many firms are good at it. "A lot of marketers just don't tackle it. I'm amazed at communications that don't have life stage-appropriate creative for the target market, because the companies have the data."

It is too bad, really, because those that do act on their entrenched knowledge are able to converse with consumers on a whole new level. Says Linton: "Consumers give companies information, and now they expect those companies to act on it." The most notable benefit is enhanced customer retention capabilities, he adds. "Just increasing it by 0.5% has a huge impact on the bottom line."

Thankfully, not everyone is missing out; Linton points to a couple of firms that are getting it right. One is the Loyalty Group, which he has worked with in the past. The Toronto-based company, which manages the Air Miles brand, has had a new mover package, geared at Canadians who have recently landed in a specific neighbourhood (and therefore need to buy stuff), for quite some time now. But in the last couple of years, says Linton, the program has been improved to include "customized offers [influenced] by a mover's past behaviour," as well as a personalized sponsor locator map.

"If you move to Etobicoke, they will send you a map with your new location and dots with sponsors' logos on them," he says. "So it's highly relevant for avid Air Miles collectors and it drives an immediate call-to-action." Not to mention, it opens a "strategic window, where [a sponsor] can gain a lot of lifetime value, because they're establishing a relationship immediately."

Then there's Shoppers Drug Mart. Linton calls the retailer, which relies on its Optimum loyalty program for gathering information, an excellent life stage marketer, specifically when it comes to new moms. The drugstore chain has gone so far as to create a separate "Shoppers Optimum Program for Moms." Consumers can currently sign up on the Web site and are rewarded with double points for their trouble. Meanwhile, Glow magazine, the retailer's custom pub, has a separate "momlife" section.

And, two years ago Shoppers' implemented a mom-oriented vendor participation program, enabling brands to target women with discounts and other communications. Off the bat, the average lift of the direct mail versus those who did not receive the communications was 8%.