Mailing list brokers – Helping you find your target market

While traditional advertising like magazine ads or billboards can be helpful in introducing your company's offerings to a wide audience, tracking actual results can be difficult. Direct marketing is often an effective way to connect with potential new customers in a measurable manner. Mailing list brokers serve as your guide to this world, providing relevant lists of prospects for your marketing efforts.

Mailing list brokers provide contact information for businesses and people at home and at work. For example, they can help you get a list of businesses or consumers who have purchased products or services similar to yours or who are in your service area.

Targeting your audience
A better way to reach potential customers is to target your search to include the exact traits you want. Many mailing list brokers specialize in what is known as "targeted lists"—they allow you to select from dozens or even hundreds of fields of information to create detailed demographic and lifestyle filters that match the characteristics of your client base.

Since a typical compiled list database features tens of millions of consumers and businesses collected from various public sources such as telephone directories, credit bureaus, and annual reports, these "selects" will let you narrow your search to a more specific audience.

Business-to-business lists can be categorized by type of business (small business, home business, industry), annual revenue and employee size. A consumer list may include selects for buying history, household income, location, and credit rating.

The more category filters you select, the more targeted your list will be. The significant benefit is that filtered mailing lists typically provide the best return on investment (ROI). However, such specific targeting comes at a premium: a targeted list will cost considerably more per name.

Example of targeted list using selects
Say you want to rent a mailing list to offer a product to lawyers. You can work with a broker who's offering a list focused on attorneys, then narrow down the list to include selects such as:

• Standard Industrial Classification (SIC code)
• Practice areas
• Office location
• Who the partners/executives are
• Number of paralegals
• Employee demographics

By targeting a specific subset of business mailing lists, you can use focused marketing strategies based on an advanced understanding of who your potential customers are. While the list might not be as lengthy as one with fewer specifications, it will feature the businesses that match up exactly with the type of customer you want to reach.

How to use your mailing list
Once you determine the selects for your targeted list, how you use it to introduce your company to new customers will depend on your overall budget, the content of your message and the type of marketing collateral you wish to send.

Direct mailing lists
If you want to develop eye-catching collateral to promote your business – 3-dimensional mailings, 4-color brochures, promotional materials – a direct mailing list campaign would be your best option. It is the most commonly recognized for business-to-business and business-to-consumer correspondence. But it is also the most expensive. Make sure you budget for all costs associated with direct mailing – the list itself, the mail piece, postage, fulfillment, and follow-up – before committing to a direct mail list venture. By researching the services that experienced mailing list companies offer, you can learn the best ways to use lists for your next marketing campaign.

E-mail
An e-mail campaign is more affordable and allows a customer to reply to your offer by simply clicking a few links in your e-mail. Unlike direct mail lists, you don't actually receive the names featured on the list. Instead, an e-mail list broker sends out your message to those listed on your behalf and tracks the results. Your costs will depend on whether you will create the e-mail message in-house, or hire a full-service e-mail marketing company. By researching the services that experienced mailing list companies offer, you can learn the best ways to use lists for your next marketing campaign.