Direct marketing, whether you choose direct mail, email marketing, telephone marketing, SMS broadcasting or even fax marketing, requires a targeted and accurate marketing list to ensure a successful campaign. Unlike traditional advertising, direct marketing offers an effective and measurable method to reach a targeted audience based on specific criteria.

 

There are hundreds of list managers and list brokers, all claiming to sell the best data. So where do you start?

 

 

 

 

Selecting the right data for your campaign, list suppliers should be able to tailor a list based on the product/service you are offering and the target audience that you are trying to reach.

 

There are 2 distinct methods of targeting data;

 

 

It is very important that you establish if the list supplier is offering profiled data or true lifestyle data when comparing different data sources.

 

The same methods of targeting applies to B2B lists and B2C lists.  A supplier specialising in highly targeted Lifestyle Data will not be able to compete against a supplier selling profiled data.  It’s not uncommon for some data companies to sell data without telling the buyer whether it is profiled or the genuine article, this results in the customer getting something less than they expected.

 

We sell Lifestyle and Profiled lists and we will always explain at the time of your enquiry, what type of data we are quoting on.

 

 

 

Our best advice is to do your homework on all of your suppliers because buying a data list is often a substantial purchase. There are many data sellers in the market selling substandard, old, inaccurate and sometimes illegal lists and, unfortunately buyers usually find this out the hard way.

 

There’s no way on telling how clean a list is until you use it so base your buying decisions on reputation, longevity and accreditation. A few questions you might want to consider finding the answer to:

 

 

 

Standard compiled mailing list pricing is based on a cost per thousand (CPM). The typical CPM is £100 for consumer records and £140 for business records for single use. In most cases fees will be added to the rate depending on what selections you have made to define your list. Most list brokers/managers have a minimum order charge of £500-£1000

 

An output / production fee usually applies to each data list order; we charge a flat fee of £40. This is for the selection, extraction and production of your mailing list in your preferred format. 

 

 

It is impossible to quote a standard response rate as every campaign has its own set of variables and merits.  A direct mail list of 5,000 names selling a retail product may see a return of 1% - 3%, this would be considered a solid performance. Email success rates are considerably lower and in some markets such as financial services a 0.1% is considered a success.

However, you should understand that there are no guarantees about the amount of business you can generate.

 

 Marketing is not usually a short-term quick fix and should be viewed as a strategic approach to new customer acquisition. It then becomes your responsibility to manage the client relationships to maximise the full potential of each new customer.