Can I Upload My Own List of Addresses for Direct Mail
Straight Mail Mailing Lists: The Definitive Guide (2022)
By Joy Gendusa
Your mailing list is an extremely important element of your direct mail service marketing entrada...
In fact, I'd go as far as saying your mailing list can either MAKE or break your campaign'south success!
That'due south why I laid out in patently black and white how to select the all-time mailing list for your marketing plan, and use it to generate leads (and sales) for your business.
Here you lot get!
Contents
Affiliate ane
The Tiptop 3
Mailing Lists
Affiliate ii
Build Your Own Direct
Mail service Mailing List
Chapter 3
Like shooting fish in a barrel Customer Directly
Mail Mailing Lists
Chapter four
Why Apply Your Prospect
Mailing List
Chapter 5
Buy Mailing Lists &
Target New Prospects
Chapter half dozen
Consumer Mailing
List Services
Chapter 7
Direct Mail service List Questions
From Mailing List Providers
Affiliate 8
Mailing List Compilers
VS. Mailing List Companies
Chapter 9
More Targeted Mailing
Lists You Tin Use
Affiliate 9
Getting The Most From
Your Direct Mail Lists
In that location are 3 main groups of people that you should target with your marketing, and each one needs a marketing message specific to them. You lot desire your marketing recipient to read your bulletin and say,
"Hey! That's PERFECT for me."
Therefore, your first pace to a successful straight mail entrada is defining WHO exactly your mailing needs to reach in society generate LEADS and sales.
In order to create a steady inflow of leads — so yous actually grow your business with enough new customers — the three groups your mailing lists demand to target are these:
Group # 1: Your House Customer List
In other words:
Your customers! The exact people who have already purchased from you, which is why they are And so important.
If they bought in one case, they are probable to buy again.
Subsequently all...
Marketing to your existing customers should exist happening regularly. You lot tin can mail postcards to your customer mailing list offer them special discounts Just they're eligible for considering they're valued customers.
This blazon of marketing makes your customers feel valued. Information technology also enables you to create sales from a list that you already have on manus.
So download your list of customers — with names and addresses — from your contact database (or save an Excel spreadsheet if that'south your contact organizer), and there you have information technology! Your first mailing list.
Group # 2: Your Firm Prospect List
Near likely you have a listing of prospects who have inquired virtually your products and/or services.
This group has expressed some interest in your business organisation, but hasn't made the determination to "go for information technology" yet.
Just guess what:
They'll be the grouping most likely to answer to a special marketing offer you advertise on your directly mail piece because they've ALREADY reached out to y'all with some level of involvement.
You just need to make your special offer tantalizingly Good.
With a killer special offering on your postcard, yous can mail service 3 times to this list and generate some leads!
Otherwise, this list of prospects only sits on your reckoner (what a waste!). So export your prospect list, and organize it into a mailing list instead.
Grouping # iii: Your Super Targeted Mailing List
This 3rd and concluding group of people is equanimous of prospective buyers who've never purchased annihilation from you — nor have they inquired about your business.
The likely reason they haven't contacted you is because they don't fifty-fifty know you exist — Notwithstanding.
Targeted mailing lists are typically what business organisation owners recall of when they imagine a mailing listing they're going to transport directly postal service to.
If your marketing list is properly selected AND cleaned of error (which I hash out in later chapters) — and you make an offer that any reasonable person will detect very, very difficult to refuse — so your response charge per unit will be loftier.
Past understanding the needs of these 3 basic groups, you tin can craft relevant, effective marketing letters on your postcards — and other marketing materials — for each group.
Plus:
If y'all marketplace repetitively to each group, you will create a larger base of customers and new prospects alike, and factually grow your business with consistent fresh leads.
Like I alluded to in Chapter 1, you can create your OWN directly post lists using Group #1 and 2 from above...
Meaning, organize your lists of current customers and prospects, and at that place you accept it —
Mailing lists you tin send postcards to!
Call back —
You need to exist marketing to your current customers.
After all:
Information technology costs far LESS money to keep a client than it does to go out and generate a new one.
Log that 1 away — it's basically marketing GOLD.
And good news:
Your customers are likely to buy from you again since they already gave you their coin — plus, the 2d (or tertiary) sale is often much easier to make than the initial outset.
Now, at that place are iii cardinal rules to follow when marketing to your existing customers:
- Collect ALL your customers' contact data
- Definitely don't market to your customers similar prospects
- Don't permit your promotional designs to become stagnant
These bullet points are so chock-total of useful information that I'm dedicating the next affiliate entirely to them...
Rule #1: Collect ALL your customers' contact information
It sounds like a no-brainer, merely you'd be surprised at how many companies ignore information from their customers. The more than information you accept near your customers, the more likely you will exist able to make it touch with them next time you run a special or want to remind them it'due south time to social club more products or services.
Rule #2: Definitely don't market to your customers like prospects
While pre-scripted letters and generic emails may exist easier for you lot, don't brand the costly fault of treating your customers like prospects. It'southward unflattering and bad form on your part. They've spent money with you — treat them appropriately.
To avoid this debacle, make sure you lot differentiate in your contact database (fifty-fifty if that's a spreadsheet) between people who accept placed an social club in the by and people who have not. Customers desire to feel similar yous are paying attending to them and when they have placed a few orders with you and are yet getting your "10% Off for First Time Buyers" postcards, they tend to feel unappreciated. Remember, if someone doesn't qualify for an offering you are sending out, don't transport it to them.
Rule #3: Don't allow your promotional designs to get brackish
When mailing to customers or prospects you lot've already spoken to, you demand to mix things up a bit. Sending the aforementioned designs over and over to customers is fine for a while but soon it will cause them to lose interest.
Your mailings should exist attending-grabbing and informative — not stale and boring. If you recently started offer a new service, a postcard letting your database know nearly it would be a smart move.
The chief point is to keep your visitor in front of customers to go on them interested in your business.
If you send the same postcards to your customer database and your customers lose interest, you're simply wasting your money on stamp —
Plus, your postcards won't become the attending that you want.
Every fourth dimension someone contacts your business, you absolutely Need to collect their contact information. If you brand a rule out of this, you will, over time grow a huge list of prospects who are interested (to some degree) in your business organization's products or services.
This is invaluable to your marketing because information technology creates an instant direct mail marketing listing —
And one you didn't have to pay extra for.
When a prospect responds to your marketing and contacts your business organisation, you need to have a system in place that'll let you to capture their identity and contact information.
New lead source data needs to exist compiled somewhere and then it can be calculated and analyzed. I have found that a groovy way to do this is with New Caller Sheets.
At present onto the heady stuff...
Now, before y'all jump in to buy mailing lists for your direct mail campaign, you desire to know WHO you're mailing to.
This may crave a bit of enquiry depending on your business organisation, and then consider the follow questions before you spend 1 dime on mailing lists...
Look at your current client base and ask yourself:
- What characteristics do these people have in mutual?
- Where do they live?
- Are they all married (or single)?
- Why did these folks buy from MY business (vs. from my competitor)?
I recommend you acquit some of this research on your ain, merely also when you consult with a mailing list provider — who'd ideally be a legit marketing company, too — they can help y'all nail down a direct mail marketing list that'll match up with both your business and special offering.
To make certain you're getting the BEST directly mail marketing list for your entrada, here are some tips so yous're an expert when you go to purchase mailing list data...
Google the keywords consumer lists, and you'll get a ton of companies willing to sell you consumer mailing lists.
What, exactly, IS a consumer mailing list?
A consumer mailing listing contains habitation addresses and/or email addresses of consumers — people who buy products either from brick and mortar retailers or online. These lists are in turn used to sell products and services straight to individuals and families.
Using such a marketing listing, you'll be able to break prospects down by whatsoever of these factors:
- Age
- Income
- Gender
- Whether they rent or own their home
- Abode value
- And fifty-fifty More variables!
Some mailing list companies will include these options (they call them "selects") in their price — others will add together on a penny or two per record for this super-targeted data.
BE Conscientious. You lot demand to research WELL when you're looking to buy mailing lists.
You desire FRESH information. Your consumer direct postal service marketing list is the about decisive aspect of your direct marketing campaign —
Significant, information technology tin can brand OR break your campaign'due south ability to generate leads and sales for your concern.
If y'all buy outdated or inaccurate data, you are wasting fourth dimension and coin following dead-cease leads.
That's why I outline the exact questions you need to ask of your mailing list service provider...
How oft is your information updated?
If it isn't monthly - move on.
Do you guarantee deliverability?
The reply should be "yes." (Deliverability is the power of the mail slice to be successfully delivered to the prospect.)
What amount of deliverability practise you guarantee?
You should agree to NO less than xc% deliverability.
Will you refund postage stamp on bad addresses as well equally the price of each bad record?
This is a tough one... 10% is the max on bad addresses every bit an manufacture standard. Over the 10%, I do refund postage stamp on the bad addresses here at PostcardMania, as well every bit the cost of the bad address records. I think you'll be hard-pressed to find mailing list companies that volition do this, but you might as well inquire.
Can I utilize the list over and over again?
Once again, in that location will be an up-charge for this because quality companies volition charge for unlimited use of a list. These compilers are constantly updating their data, and there is a cost to that action. When a random mailing list provider says, "Sure, use it as much as you want," I'm always suspicious. WHO compiled that mailing listing and when? In my experience, all the major mailing listing companies charge more than for unlimited usage.
If it'south a "specialty list" — meaning everybody on the mailing list has back pain or rides a unicycle or loves painting pottery in their spare time — it's important to ask how the list is compiled.
Meaning, how do they know everyone on the mailing listing has back hurting? Did they buy it from a chiropractor?
Be suspicious with specialty lists, ask a LOT of questions. Don't simply believe it because they proclaim to be a mailing list service adept.
There are mailing list companies, and so there are mailing list compilers. Well, WHO compiles this data?
There aren't very many answers to this question actually.
InfoUSA is a great compiler. Their data is fresh. They have a not bad website to become your list counts from, which can be establish at world wide web.infousa.com.
Notwithstanding, if you're planning on using PostcardMania for your postcards, you may desire us to quote the list for you. Because of the quantity we purchase and considering mailing lists are not our main product (we're partial to postcards), nosotros don't need to mark them way upward, so our pricing usually comes in MUCH lower than InfoUSA's retail pricing.
But, whether yous buy the data from them, us, or whatever other listing banker — insist that the data is fresh and accurate, or your money back.
Realize though:
You will always get some undeliverables — this is normal! Businesses and people move all the time.
Don't just buy the cheapest direct mail mailing list out there, though.
Make sure you get the correct answers to the questions I listed in Chapter 7.
Retrieve:
Postage is the almost expensive part of any mailing, and if the mailing list is quondam, and you lot go more than x% undeliverable returns...
You are LITERALLY throwing coin away.
Now take a wait at these...
There are a few petty-known targeted mailing lists worth knowing well-nigh when you deal with a mailing list provider.
Subscriber Lists
1 effective way to target an audience with a shared interest is with a subscriber listing.
For example, are there magazines your market could be reading?
Allow's say you're a jeweler...
Practise you imagine there are magazines people who like ownership high-end jewelry subscribe to?
Most probable, yes!
Magazine publishers will usually hire out their subscriber mailing list.
Before you commit though, remember to ask the mailing list provider if they'll let you to use the mailing list over and over again. Oftentimes times they take a one-time usage clause in their contract. If so, look elsewhere for another company...
Using a list just one fourth dimension is basically useless.
You need to postal service to your straight mail list not just once, simply over and over (and over) again. If a mailing listing provider only allows yous to mail to it ONE fourth dimension, and you have to repurchase information technology for additional use, it may get VERY expensive and fast.
Then again — if the list is that proficient — it may be worth it. You'll exist the judge of that. It really depends on your ROI (Return on Investment).
Teaming Up With Affiliate Companies
The key to working with a mailing list provider is not to reinvent the wheel. I spent years (and a small fortune) learning the ropes from scratch. Yous don't have to.
Today, more and more than companies are willing to offer up the lists they've worked so hard to build — simply... for a cost.
Here are a few examples of this in action:
Say you're a mortgage broker:
If you're selling mortgages and work with a item championship company, they will sometimes GIVE y'all their list of clients with address information, loan corporeality, and length of loan. Sometimes fifty-fifty the lender is included. They, in plough, desire all your loans endmost with them so, in substitution, they will share the customer data they accept for your straight mail service campaign.
At present say you're a florist:
Y'all may want to use the recent mailing list of a bridal boutique. Maybe y'all tin can provide flowers at a body bear witness in commutation for a monthly direct mail list of new gown customers. Maybe there's a caterer you sometimes work with that will merchandise customer lists with you.
The point is this:
You need to get artistic. Who may desire to utilise your client list and also has a expert product or service but doesn't compete with you? Trade with them.
Business-to-Business concern Lists
When we talk virtually customers, it's important to define whether you're selling to individuals or businesses. The field of businesses selling to businesses, or B2B, is more than pop than e'er.
Permit's say you're a software-pattern company specializing in custom databases for a multifariousness of businesses. Well, you lot're not going to promote to EVERY unmarried business. You need to choose the types of businesses that do good from the type of database you offer.
Mayhap you've worked with dental offices or insurance agencies in the past. At that place are SO many unlike types of both that information technology can be difficult to prioritize...
Fortunately, there is a way to narrow it downwardly and find the right types of companies to promote to. For example, look for specific business types at www.census.gov/epcd/www/sic.html and find out their SIC (Standard Industrial Nomenclature Organisation) codes for these businesses — which I define farther below...
B2B:
What is an SIC Code?
An SIC code is minimally a iv-digit numerical code that stands for Standard Industrial Nomenclature. It is issued to businesses by the U.S. authorities in order to organize and identify all the different industries in the nation. That fashion data can be compiled and analyzed almost these industries and the government will have uniformity of statistical data collected by the various federal and state agencies and private organizations.
Reading an SIC Lawmaking
The first two digits of the lawmaking identify the major industry group, the 3rd digit identifies the sub-industry group and the fourth digit identifies the exact industry.
For example:
| Digits | Industry |
|---|---|
| 36 | ELECTRONIC & OTHER Electrical EQUIPTMENT |
| 367 | ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS & ACCESSORIES |
| 3672 | PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS |
If you see a number "9" in the third or fourth digit position of the SIC code, it means it is a miscellaneous industry "non elsewhere classified" (NEC). These miscellaneous groups are not made up of similar master action groups. They are grouped together and treated every bit a separate industry.
Why am I telling you all this?
Mailing list compilers/companies gather data about a business and i of the means to sort them is by SIC code. Sure, if you want ALL businesses in a certain gross book range, then yous won't demand to know the SIC lawmaking.
Don't leave it to the mailing list provider to figure all this out for you. They don't know your business the way you do. Compilers NEVER enquire questions to determine if the marketing list you're ordering is what you really need to accept success with your campaign. Yous need to understand this material so your mailing list is actually comprised of businesses probable to purchase your product or service, and not just some variance of that manufacture.
This is VITAL.
Like I said before, your direct mail service listing volition make or interruption your campaign.
The more understanding You lot accept about how these marketing lists are compiled and where the data comes from, the more power you will take over the results of your entrada.
Opt-In Lists
This is something y'all hear people talking about all the time in marketing, simply what does it really mean? An "opt-in list" is a list that someone puts themselves on voluntarily. They may sign upwardly for a newsletter inside a certain industry and answered "yes" to wanting to receive offers or information from affiliates of that visitor. An affiliate would be whatsoever company they sold their list to. It was the business transaction that affiliated them.
Similar whatever mailing listing, an opt-in list tin be a valuable source of data if used correctly.
The primal to all of these direct mail lists is that they are just information; y'all have to make the best out of that information by marketing to these mailing lists repeatedly.
In one case you lot're mailing to your straight postal service lists, you may begin to see postcards come back with "Undeliverable as Addressed" or "Forwarding Social club Expired" on them.
Hither's why:
Every time you mail to an address and that prospect has moved or cannot exist found for any reason, you take just paid for stamp with NO possibility of generating a response and a atomic number 82.
Apparently, information technology's a pretty big waste of money to proceed to mail to these addresses, but what practise you lot practise about it?
You could simply become into the list of names that you purchased and delete the returns. No more than bad addresses, no more than wasted stamp, right? That is one option, simply there is a improve fashion to handle the state of affairs — and it's MUCH faster!
The U.S. Postal service has an NCOA (National Change of Address) Arrangement that a limited number of mailing list companies and marketing businesses are licensed to admission. These companies are able to have the list that you have purchased, or compiled yourself, and check it against the The statesP.S. organization.
Y'all will receive a study that volition let you know if anyone on your straight post list has moved, gone out of business organisation, or even if the zip code that contact was in was changed by the Mail Office itself. Along with the study, y'all will receive a new re-create of your mailing list that has been cleaned and updated...
Meaning, all the addresses are verified equally good as can exist, and you're set up to mail to them!
Plus, the cost for having your listing checked is very economical ($50 for upwardly to 10,000 addresses), and this process will allow y'all to go on getting your message out to equally many people in your list as possible —
Limiting your returned straight mail pieces and ensuring you get the all-time bang for your postage cadet!
Yous have 3 choices when faced with a direct marketing list that needs cleaning:
Spend hours deleting every single return that y'all receive from your mailing list, waste product $175.00 or MORE in postage and press every time y'all post to that mailing list or...
Accept the list checked by an NCOA service and get back in touch with customers that may have moved, for effectually 3.5 times less than the toll of mailing again without checking it.
By the mode, there will be records that merely can't be found through NCOA, and these you should delete.
That'southward information technology! If you've made it to the finish, you now have quite a flake of information on mailing lists, and you lot know how to create, select, and buy one for your side by side direct mail service campaign.
Want a Gratis mailing list count? Go one here PLUS 1,000 records for Gratuitous if you determine to buy a mailing list from u.s..
Best,
Joy
Call or Text a Marketing Consultant 1-800-628-1804
greenhalghtedy1974.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.postcardmania.com/buying-a-mailing-list-guide/