THE DATA IS HOW OLD? – Out with the old and in with the new
I was recently surprised to discover how old the data is that some mailing houses are using when sending out commercial property mailing campaigns on their client’s behalf, this lead me to wonder when was the last time agents asked some questions of the commercial property marketing companies they use to fulfil their mailing & data requirements?
For most of us we want value for money and during these economical conditions it is vital to ensure every single penny is spent in the right place gaining the right results. To help you achieve this we want to give you the best information and help you ask the right questions (explaining why you should ask):
Four essential questions to ask your mailing house:
Q. When was the last time you imported fresh data into the area in which you are carrying out your mailing campaign?
E. Importing fresh data keeps your lists as current as possible, if you don’t import fresh data, you will never include new start companies or new branches.
Q. Will any data be used which hasn’t been telephoned, updated & researched?
E. This is a vital question, especially if you are mailing companies which have less than 10 employees any data company worth their salt will be able to tell you how difficult it is to validate this company type, raw data can be highly inaccurate upon import & may come with incomplete & inaccurate address, employee sizes, wrong or no contact name or incorrect telephone number.
Q. What tools do you use to research & cross reference your data?
E. If you do not research your data, you will miss a company that has moved, ceased to trade or simply changed their phone number.
Q. How many returned envelopes do you average per mailing campaign & what do you do with those returns?
E. It is common for every campaign to bring back some returned envelopes and our experience tells us for lots of different reasons, sometimes it is due to Royal Mail failing to deliver, sometimes because the addressee has asked to be removed from the database or because the address information was inaccurate, if you do not deal with these returns as a matter of urgency they will be mailed again and again and again.
MJM will always telephone & validate your mailing list & nothing that has not been telephoned/researched within the past 6 months will be used when supplying, mailing or emailing your campaign. So if you want value for money MJM is a great place to start as not only do we provide great data we will also beat any like for like quotation, call us for today for a quotation on 01767 313332. After all you can walk into any supermarket and find a value range but even on the value range there is a best before date!
