List Owner Essentials

How to Put Your Mailing List on the Market

Putting your mailing list on the market is generally a simple, straightforward process. It requires seven easy steps that, when completed, help you generate thousands of dollars of extra income each year. By following the seven steps outlined below, your list will be clean, highly saleable and well-marketed to potential List Renters.
  1. Organizing your list. To make your mailing list rentable, the information must be put into disk format. This requires inputting your names from hard copy such as order forms, inquiry-generated replies, seminar rosters, business cards and other sources you provide. Your disk is then shipped to a service bureau which converts it to a standardized magnetic tape format.
  2. Running a computer profile. Next, your names are broken down into categories (called selects) including business titles, gender and state/province/postal code counts. Other special selects may also be added, when available, such as average unit of sale, recency, industry classification, age and other criteria.
  3. Providing sample promotional materials. To help the List Manager best market your list, samples of your existing promotional materials must be provided. These materials, which explain your product or offer, are used by the Manager to develop list marketing materials such as datacards, postcard mailings and other sales literature. The quality of the information you give the List Manager about your list has much to do with the list's overall rentability.
  4. Sending your datacard to List Brokers. Each quarter, the List Manager sends your datacard to more than 1,000 List Brokers throughout the world for their review. These List Brokers are constantly searching for the newest, most responsive lists available. They will be interested in testing yours.
  5. Renting your mailing list. You are contacted whenever a List Broker gets a potential Renter for your list. The List Broker tells you who wants to rent your list and sends you a sample of the potential List Renter's mail piece. You can either accept or reject the order - based on whether you perceive the Renter to be a competitor.
  6. Processing the order. Assuming you have approved the List Rental, the list order is then processed. This involves shipping your names on labels or magnetic tape to the List Renter for their one-time use. (Decoy names are always placed in mailing lists to prevent unauthorized, repeated list usage.)
  7. Distributing list income. After the list order is processed, the List Manager invoices the List Broker for payment. Rental fees are generally due 30 days after the mail date of the Renter's promotion. The List Manager pays the Owner royalties each quarter and includes a full report of usage including mailers' names, number of names used and dollar amounts accrued.
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How to Build & Streamline Your List

  1. Capture the approving manager's name. Always ask for the name of the "approving manager" or person authorizing the product purchase or seminar attendance. Getting this extra nae will double the size of your list! Simply add an extra blank on the order form or have your customer service reps request the manager's name during phone registrations.

  2. Add additional segments. Besides getting the approving manager's name, adding more names ensures your list becomes even more valuable and profitable. Many extra name segments can be added such as: VP of Sales, Director of Sales, Training Director, HR Director, President, etc. Another simple way to build your list is to include rosters of attendees gathered from speeches, trade shows or showcases.

  3. Update your list. Keep track of returned mail either by deleting undeliverable mail or by updating address information. The key to a clean list is to increase the percentage of deliverable mail - updating once a quarter is ideal.

  4. Code by date and type. Code your buyers, attendees and inquiries both by date of response and type of buyer (i.e., cassette buyer, book buyer). Older names do not pull as well as new ones, and renters are willing to pay a premium for recent names.

  5. Offer incentives for testing your list. To entice list brokers and mailers to test your list, offer incentives. For instance, if your training company produces audio cassettes, offer a free tape for each 5,000-name rental. With this incentive, the list broker or mailer becomes more familiar with your product and appreciates the goodwill gesture.
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Roles of List Manager, Broker & Owner

List Managers earn a 15% commission on the price of the mailing list each time it is rented. This percentage helps cover costs incurred in handling list promotions such as developing datacards, directory listings and space ads and representing lists at trade shows, sales meetings and through telemarketing. The Manager's main focus is to provide timely, reliable service to the List Broker.

List Brokers earn a standard 20% commission on the price of the mailing list each time it is rented. The Broker's primary goal is to represent mailers who wish to rent lists. They constantly screen the lists on the market to find those that best fill the mailer's criteria.

List Owners receive the balance of the rental income which is approximately 65% after nominal service bureau charges are deducted. To keep the lists most up-to-date and rentable, the List Owner sends the most recent names of their buyers to the List Manager each quarter.

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Databases - How to Generate Extra List Owner Income

Adding the Owner's List to a database is another way to market it. The list names are blended with dozens of others from various Owners' lists. Generally, the kinds of lists combined this way all contain similar demographics - in essence making the database larger while keeping the selectability the same.

One advantage to marketing an Owner's list through a database is that smaller lists (generally those up to 20,000 names), can earn extra rental income by being part of a larger group. A second advantage is that many smaller lists never reach the 5,000 name minimum required to be rented. Being part of a database is a way to have the smaller segments of these lists pulled more frequently. Also, large mailers often prefer renting database lists (as opposed to individual lists) because they can get all the names they need by only placing one order.

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15 Benefits of List Management

  • Your list management income offsets your list costs on the prospecting side

  • You can take advantage of many small, but responsive private lists out there to rent when your list is available for reciprocation or exchange

  • Your own list is cleaned with address standardization, CASS certification and intradupe removal at no charge to you, plus run through National Change of Address for a nominal charge

  • You see valuable inter list duplication reports from public databases providing you insight into how your list matches with other well known lists

  • You get to see brochure samples and mail quantities of what other mailers are doing

  • When a mailer wants to rent your list you can indicate they must reciprocate their list, even if it is private and not on the market

  • You can omit your list when it is included in a public database when you order from that database to get better net names

  • You can pull multi-buyers against your own list from a public database

  • When your list is in the MDA Premier Executive Database, you get an overlay of your list with SIC code, employee size, job title, job function, geographic sort and other enhancements

  • When we manage your list, we often pre-pay list brokerage orders to help your cash flow

  • The 5,000 name minimum is waived when you place a list order from the List Emporium database

  • Your own decoy names can track how fast your own mailing hits or monitor what other mailers are doing

  • We maintain your list and when needed for your own mailing ship it for running charges only

  • Your customer list is available for trade for a free expo booth if you intend to exhibit at a particular show

  • Your list is part of the Lewis Direct archives - we know virtually every list out there, especially private lists
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The 12 Biggest Mistakes Mailers Make

  • They don't mail their house list

  • They don't run a merge-purge to de-dupe names

  • They don't mail multi-buyers

  • They don't take full advantage of postal discounts

  • They don't use decoy names to track if and when a mailing piece arrived

  • They don't send an official list order or P.O., but rather base their order on a verbal conversation

  • They don't track keycodes to know what worked

  • They don't order from a public database to get better names

  • They forget to omit their house list when ordering from a database

  • They don't try to exchange their list to save money

  • Their mail piece is inconsistent with their offer

  • They don't mail enough names
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