How to Choose Lists for Direct Mail Marketing

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By Jeanne Grunert
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The right mailing list can contribute as much as 25% towards success.

Postcard mailings, direct mail marketing, catalogs and integrated marketing campaigns using direct mail and online marketing continue to remain effective. The rising costs of postage and printing, however, poses special challenges for direct marketers. Out of the three main points affecting response rate - creative, offer and mailing list - the mailing list can contribute as much as 25% towards the success or failure of a campaign. Choosing the right list means that your carefully prepared marketing piece lands in the hands of people interested, willing and able to respond to the offer. Choose poorly and your piece is more likely to end up in the trash. Here's how to select direct mail marketing lists for the best results.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Computer, printer, fax
Telephone
List brokers
Data to help you choose customer demographics to focus on for your offer
Direct mail piece, such as a postcard, package or catalog
Postage
Budget to rent mailing list

Step 1

Before looking through the offerings of various list vendors, consider the customer. Who are you targeting? What do you know about your customer - gender, age, shopping preferences, etc? What is your offer? All of these factors help you determine the ideal customer.
Step 2

Write a short description of the ideal customer. Such a description may read like this one, created for one of our clients: "The ideal customer is a woman, age 35-50, who loves horses. She may not be able to ride or keep a horse now, but she loves their beauty and having artwork around her representing horses fires her imagination."
Step 3

Now that you know who you are targeting, you can begin checking through mailing list sources. Lists are rented, not sold. You buy the rights to use them one or more times. You must tell the company how many times you intend to use the list when you rent it. Reusing lists results in fines and more. Lists are seeded with names of company employees or others who track and monitor use and report back to the list broker who used the list and how many times they used it.
Step 4

Know the difference between the two major lists: compiled and response. Compiled lists are the least expensive but also the least effective. List brokers create these lists based on demographic data and public information sources. Response lists may include lists rented by other vendors in your segment, those who responded or subscribe to magazines representing an area of particular interest, or anyone who's responded to a similar offer. For our example of a woman who loves horses, a response list would be a much better choice since we need to target a customer with very specific tastes and interests. A response list for this campaign may include subscribers to Horse and Rider magazine, members of a horse breed association such as the Tennessee Walking Horse Association, or those who bought products from an equestrian catalog, like Back in the Saddle.
Step 5

Contact the list brokers and ask for sheets called data cards. These list the various selections on file, such as age, demographics, etc. You will pay a base price to rent the names and additional costs for each data selection. List rentals usually require a minimum rental of 5,000 or more names, although some require more and a few allow less. This is spelled out on the data card.
Step 6

Ask your agent or sales representative at the list company to help you make a selection if you aren't sure. They want you to be happy with your choice, and come back for more lists, so they have a vested interest in making sure your mailing is successful.
Step 7

Be sure to ask that your name and address be added to the file. This helps you track when the mailing arrives at your customers' homes, so you can begin assessing response rates. If you can set up a direct marketing test to assess which list performed better for you, you will have concrete data to judge the effectiveness of the rented list.
Step 8

Request the list and pay for it. Lists in electronic format are preferred since the data can be loaded into the printer or mail house machines and ink jet printed directly onto the mail piece. Some smaller list brokers or specialized brokers only provide peel and stick labels.

Comments

JeanneGrunert said

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on 7/27/2009 I do not recommend list brokers who comb through the Yellow Pages and make lists. These are usually NOT worth investing in. You want to look for RESPONSE data since past behavior (responding to an offer) predicts future behavior (responding to YOUR offer)

tomtom12445 said

on 7/23/2009 There is another really cool list broker that also has various categories of investor lists. They have the usual yellow pages and white pages type of databases, plus investor leads. You can check out what types of lists they have at: http://www.fnin.com/