News
 How
to Spot Hot Prospecting Lists
Looking for good prospecting lists? Bill Singleton,
Manager of Analytic Services for The Allant Group,
says there are two ways to find them. Each approach
vastly differs from the other, yet both deliver
results.
The most common method is to test. You rent an
adequate sample—say, 1,000 to 5,000 names apiece—
from a variety of lists.
You mail these files once or twice in addition to
your continuation lists, to see if the response rate
and average order value reach your minimum for
roll-out. Then you go back to the lists that make
the minimum and go deeper, and you mail them until
their response starts dropping below your overall
average.
You can be comfortable with this method as long as
you have an intuitive sense that you are reaching
the core of your potential customers. But what if
you are not? What if your budget is strained by the
cost of mailing large enough samples of test lists
to get good readings?
At this point, you can try the second approach. But,
it is very different from the first one.
You find and use all the lists that your customers
are on, even if you have never mailed to them.
The discovery process requires the use of a
cooperative, or membership database of rental lists
to create your testing universe. First, extract from
or flag in your customer file all of the new
customers that you have gotten in the last 12
months. You need the full trailing year to take in
the possibility of seasonal buying.
Second, when you perform your next merge/purge
against the rental list database, request an
interaction or penetration report on matches of your
new customers to all the other lists in the
database. The customers you already have that match
lists you have not mailed, are signals for you to
investigate those lists. These buyers could have
come to you from your website or from a passed-along
copy of your catalog. Even small quantities of them
showing up on a list you haven’t considered before,
can point you toward many more.
When you see these matches show up on the
interaction report, you will have found new lists to
test in your standard sample-and-mail method. Some
of the new sources might be similar to your current
prospects and become solid continuation lists.
However, one or two might demonstrate exceptional
response and order values. Then you will have
accelerated your sales growth faster than your usual
testing method could have. You will have found new
hot lists before you have rented a single name from
them.
---Source:
Reprinted from Multichannel Merchant Magazine's List
and Data Strategies Oct. 8, 2007 newsletter. Bill
Singleton can be reached at: bsingleton@allantgroup.com.
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