Sunday, December 2, 2012

To Purchase Mailing Lists Go The Source Of The Best Ones

By Brandie Montgomery


The direct mailing of pieces of information to interested people has been a staple of marketing for many years. Being able to put a piece of literature, even if it is a simple card, in front of someone they can not delete before they look at it is appealing to many off line business people. How and where to purchase mailing lists is still the biggest element in the overall designing and planning work involved.

There are a fairly large number of places to get these lists, however, a few minutes devoted to planning what it is you need would be appropriate before you pick up the phone. The first issue is knowing what your current buying customers are interested in. You need to examine why they are buying from you. You want to know why they buy the particular product or service you offer and at what particular times during the many different seasons of the year.

Different types of listings exist. The first one will be composed of those people or business buyers who have already responded to direct mailing pieces. These are important ones to look at. They will have been entered onto a database, listed by many different criteria. The one you want to look at are those products or services similar to yours.

The second type of list will be those that list the individual companies involved in each industry, That might mean you will find all of the car dealerships, by brand and area. This is helpful as you may have a product or service that is aimed at these businesses. Fast food restaurants, pet stores or adult book stores will make up similar lists.

Identifying what it is your are selling and to whom it will better benefit, approach the list owners with care and a lot of questions. Know that the newer the information, the better the quality of the leads. Getting the potential recipients interest as close to your actual offering is the best course of action as well. The large the list is, the better it will be for you when you start the mailing campaign. The testing you need to do is still to come, however, the list you find should be close to where you need to be.

One of the best sources of these highly targeted lists is the ones that can be acquired from magazines subscription owners. If your product or service is represented by one of the more than 10,000 magazines, in the United states alone, you might be in luck. There is a very good chance the list, or a portion of that list, can be rented or bought from them.

Catalogs, especially the specialty ones will often rent their customers name and mailing addresses. This might only be for a one time use, however, with an appropriate appeal to their interests, as expressed in the nature of their previous purchases, it might be all you need. A tightly worded offer, with a seasonally adjusted message, might help you surpass the normal expected response rate of two percent.

Planning your campaign and designing the best marketing piece is one thing. Getting the right list to make that effort worth the time you spend on it is another. Knowing your customer base and their likes and dislikes and targeting those lists is the process you need to perform. In your efforts to purchase mailing lists, study, ask questions and then test a small amount of that list before you spend a lot of time and money on it.




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