Mailing lists: a primer

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct, 1989 by John Klingel

The primary determinant of direct mail response is the extent to which the mailing lists isolate the market. Theoretically, we should be able to get 100 percent response. All we have to do is figure out who's going to respond, isolate that group, and mail only to those people. If only life were so simple! If only lists were so simple! But they are not. Given that truth, let's take a look at lists and see what can be done to improve response.

The most common mistake people tend to make with lists is to stereotype the names. Often I hear people say, "Those aren't our type of people." 0 "If they bought tbat product, the couldn't possibly appreciate ours."

The truth is, the audience for an magazine or the buyers of a product a a rather diverse group of people. A mag azine whose readers have a median age of 40 could have readers half of whom are 20 and half of whom are 60. Or more likely, the median of 40 will be the function of a wide distribution of ages.

To think you can understand who the people on various lists are or how they are going to respond is a little foolish. Human nature is much too complex. And remember-you're not expecting the entire list to respond. You would probably be very happy with a 5 percent response.

Nonetheless, some lists do respond better than others. So the big question becomes, "How can I determine what lists will work?" The answer is very simple: You test and test and test. You simply cannot determine how a list will respond without testing. But no matter how many observations or general rules I can formulate about tests that work and ones that don't, there are going to be numerous exceptions. And sometimes, the exceptions turn out to be among the best lists.

So with the "You have to test to be sure" rule as an overriding principle, let's review some basic observations about lists while keeping in mind the fact that there are lots of ex ceptions. Repeat performances

The most important observation of direct response behavior is this: "People have a tendency to do again what they have done before."

Some people buy through direct mail and some people don't. Once someone has purchased something through direct response, there is a tendency to do so again. And the repeat action is most apt to happen immediately; the longer the time lapse since the first purchase, the lower the likelihood of further purchases.

Consequently, the first determinant of a good mailing list is names of people who have shown a tendency to purchase through direct response. People who have subscribed to one magazine are likely to subscribe to another. People who have purchased books through the mail are likely to purchase more books. People who have donated money to one cause are likely to donate to others.

The majority of productive lists for almost all consumer magazines are other magazines' lists. Catalogs tend to use other catalogs' lists, and fund raisers tend to use other fund-raising lists. However, in most markets, there are some lists that market the product to a broader base-and these lists also generate new prospects for the field.

For example, liberal magazines such as Tbe Progressive, In These Times, and numerous other titles all tend to use the same lists and generally can't go outside a relatively small list universe. However, the usable list universe includes Mother Jones and Tbe utne Reader, two publications with list universes outside the hard-core liberal political list universe.

As I said earlier, the best direct mail lists are lists of people who have purchased similar products through direct response. Lists of catalog buyers seldom work for magazines. These people may have the right demographics with regard to income and education, but may not br magazine readers. (Believe it or not, there are people who aren't interested in magazines!) The best lists for magazines, generally, are people who have shown a tendency to purchase magazines.

Again let me mention that there are exceptions. Some magazines can make catalog-buyer lists work for magazine offers, but usually only if some subject relationship exists. Someone who has purchased from a gardening catalog, for example, may be a good prospect for a gardening magazine.

Over the years, I frequently found myself working with different magazines that could all make the same list work. The fascinating thing was that each magazine would get buyers with different demographics. Each magazine, in effect, would get its own audience and the demographics of the responders would not always reflect the average demographics of the list being used.

Which brings me to another point: The demographics of a mailing list are probably one of the least important factors in considering which lists to use. If your magazine is targeted toward high income and better educated people, a list of millionaires with master's degrees will probably not work as well as the Smithsonian or Tbe Atlantic lists. The people on those lists are upscale-and they have subscribed to a magazine and have probably responded to direct response . On the other hand, a compiled list of millionaires with master's degrees has not been qualified by prior magazine readership or direct responsiveness.