Archive for the ‘Mailing Lists’ Category

1. Consumer data lists to help you secure and retain new customers

   Posted January 25th, 2010

   You might have done all the market research in the world in order to profile your customer base in the closest possible detail. Unless you have a way of actually contacting those carefully profiled customers, however, it might well prove impossible to convert in the most conscientious market research into sales. Consumer data lists can supply the key to unlocking the door between the theoretical marketing models and actual customers.

   The raw data

   There is no special magic or mystery to consumer data lists, of course – they are relatively simple and straight forward. At their heart are the all-important contact details of every potential customer in the list – typically a contact telephone number and full postal address, including the postcode. Increasingly – and especially in the fast-moving and highly competitive world of just about any business – consumer email addresses are also highly-prized for use in online marketing campaigns.

   Segmented data

   What makes this raw data far more revealing and potentially more useful to your fundamental goal of increasing sales, however, is the extent to which it can be segmented, or specifically targeted towards those sectors of the consumer market most closely matching your customer profiles.

   That is why we invest the time and effort not only into understanding the way your business works and the typical profiles of the customers to whom you are pitching your products, but also into collecting additional data such as:

   • Lifestyle information;
   • Family information, such as marital status and the number of any children;
   • Employment status and income;
   • Home ownership status, such as mortgage commitments and details of any other borrowing;
   • Leisure interests and hobbies; and
   • Purchasing history, whether by direct purchases, by mail order or online.

   All of this, of course, allows a considerable degree of market segmentation and the use by you of only that data most likely to result in increasing sales.

   Up to date data

   In addition, we recognise that consumer data lists are only as good as the current accuracy of the details they contain. Therefore, we ensure that every entry has been contacted at least within the past six months in order to confirm that it still represents the customer’s current contact details.

   Tags: consumer data, data lists
   Posted in Mailing Lists |

2. List brokers – what do they do?

   Posted January 19th, 2010

   List brokers do pretty much what their title suggests – they provide a service by selling lists. The lists are no ordinary lists, of course, but those that typically prove vital to business goals – lists, for example, of customer and supplier details and market profiles. They are lists ignored at a normal business’ peril, therefore.

   For example, if you are in the business of insurance brokerage – especially if you maintain an online presence – one way of compiling your active customer profiles and insurance providers, contact details, and records of communication, of course, is to build up your own database laboriously as you continue to do business. Not only is this time-consuming, however, but also expensive (since it potentially takes your eye off the ball of what you do best; namely concluding the sales that best boost your business’ bottom line).

   Instead of diverting your own precious resources in this way, therefore, why not contract out the work to the professionals and, in the process, plumb a far richer seam. List brokers can help to deliver up to the minute analyses of just who your business partners and customers might be and just where to find them.

   Take The Business Octopus solution, for example. Drawing on more than 16 years’ of experience, three million business records and over 40 million consumer details, we can produce lists specifically tailored to your own business needs. Lists of business and potential customer contacts can be generated that give you data that is:

   • Market oriented – there is little point in your having recourse to merely random lists, of course. Our lists of relevant businesses and consumer data are developed in close consultation with your enterprise, so that you receive only those market leads directly relevant to your business;
   • Accurate data – reliable information on all the business-to-business dealings called upon by your own enterprise, together with equally dependable contact information on all your potential customers;
   • Up to date – as important as the accuracy of the original data is the fact that it is kept thoroughly up to date. Once again, this is where the professionalism of experienced list brokers comes in, by helping to ensure that the information on which your marketing relies draws on only the current and most up to date data.

   Tags: list brokers, list data, Mailing Lists
   Posted in Mailing Lists |