Understanding Marketing Lists

Do you receive those tempting emails from list sellers offering what they claim is a “qualified lead list” for as little as $1/address?  Skeptical?  Good call.

If you’ve ever taken the time personally or hired interns to build your own list, you know what it takes to gather good data.  Hunt online and in paper directories, business listings, reach out to companies, identify contacts, and sort that data into actionable lists.  It takes time to do it right.  When you spend a few hundred dollars on a list, should you have confidence that the same care was taken to ensure accuracy of capture, contacts were recently verified, and your emails will get through?  Probably not.

Renting Lists

There are countless benefits to a rented quality list over a purchased one; one of the most valuable being support from a marketing partner who can help with setting up an email campaign sending from servers that are white-listed (emails won’t be caught in spam), and can deliver a list of email opens and links clicked so you can run a direct mail campaign to the right audience, increasing your potential ROI.  The onus is now on the list provider to ensure the quality of recipients and minimize bounces and keep data up to date.

We’ve worked on direct mail campaigns with clients who have purchased, hand-curated, and rented list, and consistently the hand-curated and rented lists outperform purchased lists in both opens and response, with rented costing a fraction of the expense of hand-curated lists, and have similar levels of data completeness between the two latter types.

Getting Started On Your Marketing List

If you’re considering pursuing an email marketing campaign, also consider the ROI potential in extending that single campaign into a multi-touch marketing campaign.  Our team of professionals can help you design, print, and deliver an exceptional direct mail marketing campaign for your organization; whether it’s a blast to the complete list or a follow-up to respondents.  Give us a call at (312) 663-4720 or fill out a quote request form to get started.