Most Important Questions to Ask About a Mailing List

Purchasing or rending a mailing list is a fantastic way to grow your customer base, but with a plethora of choices available, it can be difficult to identify the right product for your needs. This week, we take a look at five key questions which will help you make an informed decision when purchasing a mailing list.

How is the information compiled?

Where the data comes from, and whether or not it can be verified is probably the single most important question you can ask a mailing list provider, as it will immediately weed out businesses who are gathering data from illegal or questionable sources.

What kind of usage do you offer?

What kind of access you’re going to be given to a mailing list is an important question to ask, but you also need to have a clear idea about what kind of usage would benefit your business. If you are a new business testing out the waters in a new suburb or with a different target audience, then it’s probably best to opt for a single use mailing list which lets you get a measure of how your audience will respond to a sustained campaign. Single use lists also tend to be higher quality, so you’re more likely to be able to target a specific group with this kind of format.

Do you offer any deliverability guarantees?

Deliverability refers to the number of the addresses on the mailing list which are undeliverable and therefore virtually useless. A good mailing list should have a very high deliverability rate of 90% or above, as that indicates it is being updated frequently and edited to weed out undeliverable addresses.

How often is it updated?

A quality mailing list should be updated with new contacts every month, and edited to remove undeliverable addresses. Any mailing list which is updated less frequently than this is a waste of money, as you’re missing out on new leads and instead sending you marketing to dead ends.

Can you target a specific audience?

You can pour all your resources into devising the perfect marketing message, but if it is sent to the wrong audience, it will be disregarded as junk mail. A reputable provider should be able to give you a mailing list that is tailored to your target audience, so you can get the best return on your investment.

Direct Mail Solutions are dedicated to providing sophisticated marketing solutions which are tailored to suit the needs of our clients.