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The importance of your
direct mail database
The quality of your database determines the success of your direct mail campaign. Your campaign could be aimed at: - Existing customers – to sell additional products or services to
- Existing customers – to keep in touch to retain them as customers
- Non-customers – as a lead generation exercise
- Non-customers – aiming for a sale
Existing customers
If you are targeting customers, you should already have the database in-house. The more detail you keep on your customers, the more effective your communications with them will be. In addition to up-to-date contact details, you should try and keep information such as individual’s birthdays, interest, and family situation. This will allow you to strike up a more personal relationship with them and target the content of your mailing very precisely.
Non-customers
If you wish to target non-customers, then you will need to get data from elsewhere. You may have some contacts acquired from other marketing activity (such as subscribers to your free newsletter, or entries into a prize draw). But you can also purchase (or more usually rent) lists from external sources. There are hundreds of ‘list brokers’ out there, and if you search on Google for “mailing list rental” or "direct mail list broker" you’ll have an array to choose from. Other sources you can consider include:
- Directories such as Yellow Pages or Thomson’s Local
- Business or trade directories (these can be quite costly but you can access them free of charge at libraries)
When renting/purchasing lists, make sure the company selling them can guarantee that they are up to date. Businesses change daily and so you will never get a list which is 100% accurate, but you should be looking for companies who check the accuracy of the databases on a regular basis. As a rule of thumb, never invest in lists that are more than two years old.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
When gathering, storing or using information about customers, potential customers or suppliers, you must comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. Check out the guidelines on the Business Link website. Alternatively the Direct Marketing Association produce a very
comprehensive guide .
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