Database Marketing
by John Eberhard

A vital part of any marketing effort today is "database marketing". This term means sending direct mail to mailing lists, and specifically selecting different lists and using different ways to select people from those lists, to tightly zero in on your public. If you clearly know what public buys your products, you can acquire lists of those kinds of people, and therefore get a much higher percentage of response to your promo.

There are list companies all over the U.S., offering a wide variety of lists for sale of various types of companies or consumers. The price of these lists depends on how much information is included, the format in which you buy the list, and the manner in which the list was compiled.

Some companies will sell you labels with just the name and address on them. That's only for one time use, and that will be the cheapest type of list you can buy. A better but more expensive option is to buy the electronic version of a list. Many list companies lease the list to you for unlimited usage for a year, although some will sell it to you outright.

1. Compiled Lists: These lists are made from sources like the Yellow Pages and White Pages, rosters and membership rolls, or vehicle registration lists. Many companies that make compiled lists call each company or person and get additional information, such as contact names, revenue size, number of employees, etc. You can then select lists according to revenue size, SIC code, or only within certain states, zip codes or area codes. Some makers of compiled lists include American Business Information, Dun & Bradstreet, and R.L. Polk.

2. House Lists or Central Files: This is a list you put together from people who have bought something from you, or people who inquired about your products and services but not yet bought something. You want to structure your database so that it is recorded in each customer record what the person bought, how much he bought (in dollar volume), and what date. With people who inquired but didn't buy, I personally recommend keeping them in the same database, but clearly marked as to which ones are customers or not. You should record what he inquired about, what date, and what level of interest he had. It is very valuable to be able to mail to your customer and inquiree list, so if you don't have it entered in a database you should make it a priority to do so.

3. Response Lists: These are basically other people's house lists. They are people who responded to other companies' promo or bought something from them. The major advantage to you is that you can select lists from companies that sell products related to yours, so that if they inquired about the other product they would likely be interested in yours too. To purchase these types of lists see "List Brokers" in the Yellow Pages.

4. Magazine Circulation Lists: These lists is very valuable especially with trade publications that service the market you sell to. Most trade publications will rent their lists out, usually for one time usage only, and usually they're fairly expensive. But often you can get a great response from these lists so it is worth the expense.

5. Demographically Specific Consumer Lists: These are lists that are compiled of people who have very specific interests or demographic traits, such as people who own their own home, seniors over 60, pool owners, boat owners, Republicans, people who own cats, or people who earn over $100,000 a year. One provider of these types of lists is Mailing Lists of Southern California.

The basic idea here is that if you can get a list of people that are already qualified as people who would be interested in your products or services, then your percentage of response, when you mail to them, is going to be much higher. Plus as you send out mailings to more segmented sections of the population, your promo can be more specific in speaking to that person's needs and attitudes.

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