Everyone in business wants to build a great mailing list. But when I speak and ask, “Who wants to get more email and direct mail?” nobody raises their hand. Interesting.
I’ve been a mailing list broker for over 25 years. The mailing list business has been up. The mailing list business has been down. Currently, I see a return in demand for snail mailing lists (or for us fossils, OLD media). I love email marketing. But prospecting emails won’t warm up a pipeline. So here are my top 6 considerations when buying a mailing list.
1. The more specific you are about your target audience, the more likely your prospecting efforts will be successful. When in doubt, think of 3 good customers (the ones who make you say, “Jeesh, wish I had 20 more just like her!”). What makes you say that? What characteristics, demographics, behaviors, interests make these people perfect to do business with? Tell us everything. We’ll help you figure out the best profile by asking you leading questions. We like to say, “There’s riches in niches!” So drill down–we can take it! (And…hint, hint: don’t tell us EVERYONE is a customer. We immediately know you have given zero thought to your business and we think, why should we?)
2. Please don’t need the list *5 minutes ago* Only cheap, generic and usually under-performing mailing lists are instantly downloadable. That’s not the kind of mailing lists we recommend or sell because we want repeat customers. (If that’s what you want, just browse online for “cheap mailing lists,” and take us out of the equation.)
True targeted mailing lists (a/k/a response lists) are actually somebody else’s customer list. The mailing list owner built a successful business, took care of his customers, and is now monetizing his mailing list asset by renting names–but only if you’re not a competitor. If you are a competitor, he’ll likely refuse to rent his customer list to you. The process of figuring out if you deserve access to these names (how would you feel if they were your names!) is called *submitting a sample mail piece* which takes time to process. You actually have to show the list owner what you plan to do with his names. They’re his names, so he can say, OK. Or he can say, “not happening.”
One last thing: There are over 60,000 mailing lists. Only 3 – 10 will be right for your business. It takes time and expertise to filter these options. Please, cut us some slack as we do the research for you.
OK, 2 last things: Don’t use us for market research. Or, if you want market research, tell us, and we’ll charge you for it. We sell lists; we’re not in the list count business.
3. Expect mailing list counts to be only estimates. You won’t know actual numbers until you place your order. List counts change because of updates and because the list count software can work off estimates, not live data. Speaking of updates, legitimate list owners update mailing addresses monthly or more frequently and update their data feeds quarterly or more often. If they don’t, we don’t recommend their mailing lists. 4. Prepayment is customary in the mailing list business. Or as we like to say, “When the USPS offers open accounts, we will too.” It’s nothing personal.
5. Expect delivery to take 5-7 working days. Yes, *someone* should be able to push a button and–ping–deliver your list to your inbox instantaneously. But, in reality, expect your list to take 5-7 working days to process.
6. What guarantees are available? Ah, if only life came with guarantees on everything! The bad news is, we have no idea if your prospecting program will make you money or not. We’re not in your business, and we don’t know if there’s a market there or not. You can use our online direct marketing calculator to see the response you need to break even. Does the answer scare you or make you say, “That’s do-able!”
The good news is we do have a guarantee on deliverability, something we can control. Most list companies will guarantee 80% or higher deliverability. We guarantee 98%. That means if you get more than 2% bad addresses or phone numbers, we’ll credit you. Can’t guarantee success, but can guarantee mailing list accuracy.
In the next post I’ll discuss what you can do with a mailing list.
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