How Do I Make a Mailing List?

The quality of your mailing list is vital to the success of any direct-mail marketing campaign. It's estimated that as much as 40 percent of your overall success is directly contingent on this critical component. So how do you making a mailing list guaranteed to yield an excellent return on investment and an outstanding profit margin? Try following the tips below.

Seek one customer

Amateur marketers often make the mistake of mailing to a broad list, falsely believing that the more types of people they send their offer to, the better their chances of success. But smart marketers take few risks. They know not only who their target audience is, but who their target customer is. They give this customer a name, a biography, a life; and they market to that one person. Your target customer is your very best customer - the one responsible for most of your success. The perfect mailing list is then comprised of carbon copies of this customer. Of course, you can't carbon copy customers but suffice to say that mailing list your should be very well defined with little variation between recipients.

Define demographics

Once you know who your target customer is, you need to dig deeper to define as many demographics that pertain to your customer as possible. Everything from the degree your customer holds and their income to eating out preferences and lifestyle behavior can lend insight into your customer's psyche and help you create a mailing list as well as fine-tune your marketing materials to cater to your customer's desires.

Make your own mailing list

List brokers are one way to get your mailing list, but if you're on a budget you can make your own mailing list by entering your customer's demographics into an online mailing list generator tool. Depending on your strategy, you might want to rent your list for one-time use or for multiple uses. Repetition is one of the best ways to brand your company, so it often pays to rent your generated mailing list for multiple mailings.

Test, test, test

Once you have your mailing list, you should test different mailers across small segments to determine which will be more effective. Sometimes something as simple as a single word change in the headline can have a dramatic effect on your response rate. Once you identify the best mailer, send it to your entire list

These tips represent a tried-and-true way to develop your own mailing list primed for direct-mail success. Don't skip any steps, add a powerful mailer with an exceptional offer and watch your sales soar!