Key Takeaways
- No matter how good your offer is, if you have a poor target audience, the offer isn’t going to get many responses.
- When looking at lists, compare aspects of the list like update frequency, pricing, and the overall count to determine whether the list will work.
- A quality mailing list has its target audience clearly defined, is updated on a regular basis, and aligns with the mailer’s campaign goals.
Introduction
After deciding what your campaign will be, it can be a daunting task to choose the proper mailing list. After all, searching for a general term can result in hundreds, if not thousands of different mailing lists. Mailing lists can come in all shapes and sizes, so it can be intimidating looking at the wall of lists.
What makes a list stand out from the rest? There are several factors that can help you evaluate the quality of a mailing list, and choosing a good mailing list can heavily increase the amount of engagement that your mail piece gets, as well as saving money from reducing postage on mail pieces that are sent to the wrong people.
What Does Make a Good Mailing List?
A good mailing list should define exactly who the target audience of the list is. While this sounds like an obvious factoid, mailing lists can sometimes use vague language, be inconsistent on the contents of the list, or can be not detailed enough to answer the question of who the target audience is, that might be a list that you want to avoid.
If the mailer has had positive experiences in the past with a specific list manager, then the list manager’s other lists will probably give you good results as well. (For information on what a list manager is, check out our article on list brokers and list managers.) Another aspect to consider is the list manager’s willingness to answer questions and work with the mailer through the process. If the list manager can answer where the data was sourced from, the accuracy of the data, and is positive to work with, that’s a good sign that the mailing list will be a list that you’re going to want to use.
How Can I Tell a Good Mailing List From a Bad One?
The easiest and number one factor to look at when trying to determine if a mailing list is quality is the update date. When was the last time that the list was updated? There isn’t a set amount of time that a list needs to be updated, but a good rule of thumb is that lists are to be updated monthly or quarterly. If you see a list that was last updated two years ago, that probably isn’t going to be a list that you’re going to want to go with.
Another good thing to remember is the old rule of if something is too good to be true, it probably is. If you see a mailing list charge twenty or thirty dollars cheaper than every other list per thousand names, or if you see a total universe count that is significantly higher or lower than the competition, it’s worth asking why that is. Depending on the list manager’s answer, it could we worth avoiding that mailing list.
How Do I Compare Between Mailing Lists?
Having an idea of who your target audience is and working backwards from that can be an effective way of comparing between different mailing lists. Doing that while keeping your budgetary restraints, knowing the amount of mail pieces that are going to be sent out, and making sure that the mailer services the area(s) that the mail piece will be sent to are great ways to narrow down which mailing list you’re going to be using.
Contacting a list broker can also be a good way to compare between different mailing lists. List brokers can often help mailers find the best mailing list, as they are able to provide an unbiased opinion on which mailing list would work the best, based on target audience and constraints that the mailer might have. For more information, check out Geon’s list brokerage service.
FAQ
- Q: Will a large mailing list perform better or worse than a small mailing list?
- A: Depending on the mail piece and campaign, a large mailing list could perform better or worse. If the campaign is targeting a large piece of the population with little in terms of general segmentation, then a large list would perform acceptably. If the campaign is targeting a niche population, you’re probably going to want a smaller list.
- Q: Is there a question that I can ask to ensure the data is up to date, regardless of the update date on the mailing list?
- Q: What do I do if I can’t find a mailing list that fits my target audience that I want to send my mail piece to?
- A: Contacting list managers and asking if they can assist with the issue can be a way to solve the problem. Geon can offer custom mailing lists. Contact us, and we can see what we can do.
- Q: Why isn’t the cheapest mailing list always the best?
- A: A cheaper list could mean that the individuals in the mailing list might not be the most highly specific audience that the mailer is targeting. Asking the list manager on the exact qualifications that an individual has to land on the mailing list can help answer the question.
Conclusion
Having a mail piece with a good, solid offer is an important part of the direct mail campaign process, but equally important is having the correct mail piece to support the campaign. By ensuring that the mail piece is going to the right demographic, mailers can maximize their engagement. Making sure that the mailing list has been updated, cleaned, and fits the mailer’s restraints are all great ways to make sure that the campaign has the highest chance to be successful.