Top 3 Things to Do with your New Mailing List

Top Three Options for the Postal list you just received.

Top Three Options for the Postal list. Have you ever rented a postal list and then held onto it for a while because you were too busy to do anything with it? Or have you ever wasted a rented mailing list because you didn’t know exactly what to do with it? This article will give you the top three things you can do with your mailing list right away before it goes stale.

Mailing List Tip #1

The day you receive your mailing list, you can be assured that it has been updated within the past 30 days and scrubbed against the NCOA (National Change of Address database). This is the time to put it to use! The longer you wait to get it out the door, the more you risk that the addresses will change.

Ideally, have your marketing piece ready before you rent your mailing list. Your list broker can help you with this if you need any assistance. If you’re renting a direct mailing list, then have your sales letter ready and as soon as you get the list, prepare the mailing labels to send it out as soon as possible.

Your list broker might even be able to prepare the mailing labels for you. Alternatively, if you are using a mailing service, just email the mailing list to them, and they’ll get your mailing done for you.

Mailing List Tip #2

Here’s the second tip: Whenever I rent mailing lists, I always suppress my current customer list against the new list, so I know that every person getting my mailing piece is new. Your mailing list company should be able to offer suppression for you for a nominal fee (or free in some cases) if you don’t know how to do it yourself. It’s preferable to ask them about this before you rent the list, so you can get your list over to them in advance. If you are worried about confidentiality – don’t. Mailing list companies do this all the time, and if they are reputable (for example, a member of the BBB), you can be assured they will keep your list confidential and destroy it as soon as they’re finished with it.

Mailing List Tip #3

The third tip is for small business owners on a very limited budget and who cannot afford to mail out to the entire mailing list at once. Here’s what to do: Decide on which demographics are most important to you and sort the list according to that. For example, let’s say you are marketing a teeth whitening service to dentists, and your list broker has delivered a list of dentists specializing in cosmetic dentistry. You can look at your list in Excel and sort the columns according to sales revenue, number of employees and geography. (Make sure you ask for these selects to be included in output when you order!) You may decide that you want to send your mailing piece to the businesses with the highest revenues first. If you have sorted the businesses according to sales revenue, you can easily pick out the top companies and paste them into a new file. Then you can create your mailing labels from that new list.

The most important thing to do with your mailing list…

…is to use as soon as you receive it is MAIL IT! It pains me when people rent mailing lists and then don’t use them because they are too busy or don’t know what to do. Ask your list broker for help and if they won’t help you, find someone else who will!

At Strategic List Services, we go above and beyond for our clients. Give us a call today or fill out a Research Request so we can show you firsthand!