Which mailing List works the best?

[ruff]

What mailing lists do you guys use?

Do you buy from DataQuick? Other source?

Do you buy a year's subscription?

What criteria do you use to try and weed out the devout lowest price shoppers?
Value of house? Certain neighborhoods? Just purchased a home? Any thing else?

What worked best for you?

Your hard earned advice is highly appreciated.

 

[ruff]

Surely some of you used mailing lists.

As Pink Floyd said in the wall:
"Hello....Hello....Helo......
Is there anybody out there?"

 

[Royal Man]

I think that the problem lies in that most guys here have been around the block a few times and know that the shotgun direct mail approach is very costly and low producing.

Most just use direct mail mainly for client retention and to increase their client repetition

Marketing is the same as building relationships in your real life.

Foster current relationships

and it's easier to have a stranger open a closed door for you. If you have someone that they are familiar with, open it for you.They then become your instant best friend, instead of a price shopper.

You can do that by developing the referral sources and centers of influences that are all around you and tap in to their many relationships.


Back to the shotgun mail approach.

A few targeted bullets will bring back more big game than blindly shooting in the air with bird shot.

 

[Jay D]

sf or tx?

 

[Desk Jockey]

With Info USA you can narrow your focus down to your target client. We used them some with decent results over the years.

 

[ruff]

Jay, California Sierra Foothills.
That is an area about 2 hours east of SF, towards the sierra but before the serious climb up.

Nice homes. Lots of self employed people, some people with second homes. I assume many people will commute to Sacramento or maybe even to the Bay Area for better paying jobs. Beautiful land as can be.
Not a very rich area, but not poor either.

 

[ruff]

Richard,
Thanks for the reply. How about specifics?

What do you target?
Home size, income, specific zip code, anything else?
What criteria worked best for you?
What frequency produced the best results?

 

[Desk Jockey]

The numbers may not relate well from Kansas to Cali.

Homeowners, combined income of $200,000.00 & up, all zips

Frequency-? We are terrible at being consistent, we do a mailing and then get busy and don't do anything for a long while.

The plan is for us to do quarterly once we get past these holiday cards.

 

[ruff]

Thank you Richard, that is very helpful.
I actually think that these numbers will work quite well in CA.

Just on a curiosity note, I thought that getting $200,00.00 combined income in Kansas will rule out most of the population as that is a pretty high combined income.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Like any state there are affluent people in in every city (yes even in Kansas :mrgreen: ), those numbers are smaller than cleaners with a larger markets, but we are still targeting potential customers and not just shot gunning, wasting money on people that we know are not going to be our clients.

 

[ruff]

Well said.
I am curious why $200,000.00 and not say: $150,000.00?

 

[Desk Jockey]

You could do the 150, we were trying to be a little more selective, figuring those with a little more discretionary income are more likely to use us.

We have clients in most income levels now, but when I'm looking for new clients I think for us anyway, we are looking at 200 and above. They are going to have nicer things and realize the importance of cleaning and maintaining vs replacement.
8)

 

[ruff]

Thanks Richard,
Where do you buy them from?

 

[Desk Jockey]

http://www.infousa.com/Home/home/190000