Compiled lists challenge popular response lists

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec 1, 1991 by Karen Burka

The compiled list is getting a new lease on life. So say industry sources who credit the increasing availability of targeted data overlays and questionnaire lists.

The list industry has often focused on the drawbacks of compiled lists-including low response rates and the inability to show recency or direct-mail responsiveness. Indeed, Stevan Roberts, president of list firm Edith Roman Associates Inc., argues that response lists consistently outpull compiled lists by as much as three to one.

But compiled-list advocates retort that the positives outweigh the negatives. "Some mailers are still reluctant to adopt compiled lists for marketing plans because of their experiences five to 10 years ago," claims Paul Deigendesch, manager of direct sales for American List Counsel.

"But there are substantially more compiled-list opportunities today than there were five years ago."

Traditional compilers, such as R.L. Polk, Metromail and Donnelley Marketing, gather data from a variety of public sources, including voter registrations, the department of motor vehicles and the phone book. These lists provide a high volume of names at an average of $50 less per thousand than response lists. In addition, compiled lists enable mailers to saturate an entire market-something a response list cannot do.

Improving responsiveness

Today, compilers use data overlays to make their lists more attractive to mailers whose primary concern is the responsiveness of a list. On some of its lists, Donnelley marketing offers as many as 182 overlays, including credit-card use, age, income, presence of children and dwelling type. Each overlay costs an average of $3 to $5 per thousand.

Although the overlays are useful for clients in extremely vertical markets, not everyone is impressed with the effect they have had on compiled-list performance.

"Enhancements have helped the perception of compiled lists more than the lists themselves," contends ob Perlstein, president of Lifestyle Change Communications Inc., an Atlanta-based compiler of lifestyle-change data. Other observers argue hat using numerous overlays can reduce the list's size to the degree that it is unprofitable to mail.

A new hybrid

The new frontier in compiled lists is questionnaire response lists. A hybrid of compiled and response lists, questionnaire lists are generated from consumers who respond to a questionnaire to receive future coupon and product-sample mailings. Although these consumers are not proven direct-mail buyers, they show an inclination to respond.

Roberts, of Edith Roman Associates, says the questionnaire list blurs the lines between response and compiled lists, but that he still regards questionnaire lists as response lists, not compiled.

Until recently, questionnaire lists were the domain of CMT Behaviorbank and NDL/The Lifestyle Selector. But now Donnelley Marketing has entered the realm with its Carol Wright Shareforce questionnaire, and credit bureau Equifax maintains a Buyer's Market database of 400,000 consumers who've responded to a demographic and shopping questionnaire.

Even Perlstein says his company plans to get into the act, with a distribution of 400 million questionnaires in 1992. "Consumers who respond to questionnaires are volunteering information," he says. As legislation restricting access to data continues to proliferate, marketers will need a reliable data source that doesn't raise privacy concerns. "