How relevant is your mailing list? What is on your file? Are you making it work for you the best way possible? These are all questions mailers — and the managers that represent them — should be asking. In today’s struggling economy, it is important to make one of your company’s biggest assets, your mailing list, work for you.
Your mailing list is one of multiple channels that are used to acquire new prospects, be they subscribers, donors, buyers, sweeps entrants etc. They can be e-mail names, they can be postal names, or they can be a combination of multiple sources, but they are the heart of keeping in touch and stimulating the consumers that respond to your offer.
So how relevant is your list and what does that mean?
As defined in Wikipedia, “Relevance is a term used to describe how pertinent, connected or applicable something is to a given matter. A thing is relevant if it serves as a means to a given purpose.” A list of names that sit in a computer (or in a shoebox — yes, it’s still done) is irrelevant. Lists of names that are mailed to (e-mail/postal), support acquisition and retention, used for reactivation, are rented or exchanged, are enhanced with psychographic/demographic data, cultivated and cared for… they are relevant. Put those names to work. Stay in touch with your donors, buyers or subscribers. Convert your formers into actives, exchange with other mailers to help you with prospecting.
Get to know your file better. What kind of names do you have? If they are e-mail sourced, can you append postal addresses (and vice versa)? How did you get those names (Online, telemarketing programs, sweepstakes, from a purchase or from a donation)? How recent are they? What kind of lists did you use, if you used outside lists for acquisition (databases, direct mail sold, online sourced, within your marketing category etc.)? How old were the names you used? How are actives, hotlines, formers defined? Did you record the date of your last transaction? How often do you contact your buyers/donors and how long do you keep in touch with them before you let them lapse or expire? What are their demographics/psychographics? The questions (answers) are as numerous as your inquisitiveness!
Are you making your list work for you? How often are you mailing your own offer to it? Are you using it to acquire list rental income to help pay for some of your strategic marketing programs, or apply to your bottom line? Are you using it as exchange leverage to help offset list rental acquisition costs? Are you enhancing the file, modeling it, getting to know who is on your file… and why they are there? (Are they a gift recipient? Do they like premiums?) Do they believe in your cause/product/philosophy of your periodical or just like your offer? By understanding your responders, you can better understand why it works for you (or why it does not) and be able to make them work better as it pertains to your corporate goal.
It sounds very simplistic, but it is a lot of hard work that really pays off. Once you get to know your respondents better, let others get to know you as well. Share the information, spread the word. Make your cause, catalog, publication known. Make a name for yourself and for your names!
Bob Stein is vice president of list management at Trinity Direct.
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