Postage is rising, response rates are dropping and we have exhausted and
saturated the traditional response files. However, finding a new source of
recent buyers who responded to direct mail, is very hard to come by.
In their searches for better, more stable response rates at lower costs,
many catalogers have discovered co-op databases, which offer a stable modeled
environment, considerable quantities, a predictable performance and a reduction
in cost and time. But co-ops are not necessarily available to all mailers, and
many mailers do not want to give up their control over their own house files.
Those who are not willing to should consider multisourced lists.
What is a multisourced list? It’s a compilation of mail order transactional
data, similar to the likes of the co-ops, with several advantages.
First, a multisourced list is available to all mailers, large and small,
with no membership required. Also, there is no requirement to expose one’s own
house file to other users.
Additionally, there is no need to compromise on the qualities of the traditional
response lists. The multisourced list is made up of transactional response
data, which in most cases include RFM (recency, frequency, monetary)
information as well.
Multisourced lists also boast considerable quantities across all categories;
and the individual participating sources are deduped one from another, so there
is no need for tedious net arrangement negotiation with each source
individually.
Continuing, multibuyers across all sources are available for a boosted
response. Most multisourced lists are either gathered and owned by some of the
larger compilers in the industry or overlaid by them. Mailers enjoy unlimited possibilities of
demographic and psychographic selects available to them.
This brings me to the three major benefits of these lists. First, there is no
guessing as to what solo list bares the same characteristics as your target
market. Select buyers within your mailer’s category and use the available
enhancements to create a customized list that fit your target market.
Second, this is not a dead-end list. If you need better performance, just
tighten the target market using more and better selects.
And, finally, the abundance of information that these lists have and the
size of the lists allows your mailer to apply a statistical model and reach a broad
market of like names to their existing buyers.
So, why are we so afraid to include such lists in our tests? I, too, asked
myself, “How can these lists compare to the first tier of traditional response
lists available?” and I, too, was hesitant at first to offer my own managed multisourced
lists to my mailers.
I have since tested multisourced buyers within the appropriate category and
added other available enhancements. Sure enough, the multisourced list — the
one that does not have an individual sample mail piece or Web site attached to
it — became one of my mailer’s leading lists in performance and consistency.
So, as you sit down to prepare your next mailing or list recommendation,
consider testing one or several multisourced lists and take advantage of the
vast possibilities to customize it to fit the profile of your target market.
Ari Ginsberg is the president
of Contact Marketing LLC. Reach him at [email protected].
