Mailing Lists: Understanding Your Options and Their Importance
As a business owner or operator that has experience with direct mail campaigns, you’ve probably heard of targeted business mailing lists. That’s because targeted direct mail lists can tremendously impact your business. But with so many mailing lists for sale and buyer personas to consider, it takes a lot of work to take on. Continue reading this article to learn more about purchasing mailing lists and how mailing list services can increase your conversion rates, drive revenue, and show substantial returns on investment.
What Are Mailing List Services?
Every day more and more personal data is generated and stored. This highly specific information is worth its weight in gold to businesses. But just as fast as data comes in, it can change.
Anything from moving to a new home to a salary increase can significantly impact the accuracy of your target’s information. Mailing list providers compile datasets to create a highly accurate collection of targeted consumers most likely to show interest in and convert on your offering.
Are There Different Types of Targeted Business Mailing Lists?
The variety of mailing list types is one of the things that make them such a powerful business tool. Some of the most common are:
- House mailing lists
- Email lists
- Business-to-business mail marketing lists
- Occupant data
- Sales data
- Employee data
- Business classifications (SIC codes)
An experienced and effective list builder works closely with you to understand who you’re targeting and the type of mailing list you want to develop. But even though these are distinctly different delivery channels, they can still be treated as standalone efforts. Savvy marketers and strategic list brokers often use different mailing lists in tandem to create a multichannel marketing campaign.
How Do You Develop Targeted Business Mailing Lists?
For a campaign to be successful, you must have a goal in mind and understand the type of target that can help you reach it.
Set Goals
Start your process by defining the goal of your campaign. Do you want to raise awareness of a new product or service? Do you want to retarget an interested consumer that didn’t convert (like someone that added an item to their online shopping cart but didn’t purchase)? Do you have a big sale coming up and want to alert your loyal customer base? Answering these questions is critical.
Once you know what you want to do, it’s time to focus on the prospects that can make it happen.
Define Your Audience
Even the most persuasive copy, creative design, and enticing special offers will only turn into sales if you reach the right people. You could blanket mail postcards to an area near your business and probably drum up some new leads. But when you factor in the cost of printing and postage, you’re severely undercutting your bottom line by sending out mailers to recipients with no chance of purchasing.
How you zero in on specific buyers and prospects can make or break a mail campaign. Standard information used to craft mailing lists are:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Marital status
- Income levels
- Newly moved
- Purchasing history
- Home values
While these are among the most common information types, being as targeted and granular as possible with your data is especially advantageous when creating a mailing list for a niche product or service.
Why Do Businesses Turn to Purchasing Mailing Lists?
Crafting mail and email campaigns takes research, diligence, and continual tinkering. Because of the investment in time and resources it takes to compile a quality list, many businesses turn to purchase mailing lists from specialists. Many businesses choose to buy mailing lists because of the benefits they provide, including:
More Targets
An established mailing list service provider has a substantial amount of data it’s collected over the years. And most small to medium businesses don’t have large swaths to reference. Instead, they maintain records on their current and past customers, but little beyond that. Purchasing a mailing list means adding highly targeted leads to your existing mailing list and converting more sales.
Return on Investment
When you purchase a mailing list, you acquire the contact information of people or businesses that have already shown an interest in your goods and services. And because mailing list costs are substantially lower than many other marketing methods, you’re likely to make more sales while putting less capital towards marketing.
Easy to Track
Purchasing mailing lists can be an intimidating experience. But the good news is that once you’ve purchased a list, it’s easy to view the results. If you include a coupon, QR code, or discount code, tracking the source of visitors and those that converted is simple. You can even compare the results of your purchased targeted business mailing list to those of leads you already had.
What Should You Consider Before Partnering With a Mailing List Service Provider
Just because a company has mailing lists for sale doesn’t mean their lists are accurate, targeted, or practical. Before purchasing mailing lists, be sure to ask these questions:
- How much industry experience do you have?
- Are there any case studies or examples of successful campaigns that utilized your mailing list services?
- What and how do you use analytics?
- How often do you update and curate your lists?
- What does it cost?
- What is your turnaround time for targeted business mailing lists?
- Do you offer presorting, printing, and mailing services to assist my campaign?
Looking for an Experienced Mailing List Service Provider to Boost Your Campaign? Turn to Presort Inc.
For over 30 years, Presort Inc. has helped businesses drive leads, convert sales, and build brand awareness through targeted business mailing lists. Our full-service team can help you through every step of your direct mail campaign and even bolster its effectiveness through multichannel marketing efforts.
Whether you’re interested in purchasing mailing lists or want a reliable partner to consult with from concept to completion, Presort is here to help. Reach out today to discuss our mailing list services and how they can save you time, money, and effort while increasing your sales and ROI.