Cultivating Direct Mail Multi-Buyers

April 25, 2016
Two happy friends smiling while shopping with colorful bags amidst festive holiday lights, showcasing a joyful shopping experience.
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In the search for new donors, direct mailers often rent lists of people who have donated to similar organizations.  Names that appear on more than one acquisition list are called Multi-Buyers. Because these individuals have contributed to multiple organizations, multi-buyers tend to perform better than those who appear on only one acquisition list.   Therefore, you[...]
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Using Modeling to Optimize Your Direct Mail List

April 11, 2016
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One of the most potentially-rewarding merge purge operations you can do is to use modeling to improve the responsiveness of your list. Modeling organizations use massive databases containing billions of transactions to estimate the responsiveness of records to various appeals.  While each organization does it slightly differently, modeling organizations typically use market segmentation analysis to[...]
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Choosing the Best Merge Purge Record to Keep

March 14, 2016
A hand holding a magnifying glass over paper cutouts of people, highlighting one figure, symbolizing the process of selecting the best records to keep.
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A question that arises when you’re testing different acquisition lists is how to choose which record to keep when a potential donor’s name appears on two different lists.  Like many other issues related to list management, this type of decision can be surprisingly complicated! Of course, if one of the records is on your house[...]
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Choosing Match Criteria to Dedupe Your List

March 1, 2016
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Deduping improves the ROI of a mailing by removing duplicate records from the mailing list. But despite the simplicity of the concept, the process of deduping can be quite complex. There are two key types of rules you need to decide upon for your deduping process. The first one is what level of deduping best[...]
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Why It’s Crucial to Test Your Data Hygiene Options

February 15, 2016
Test Data Hygiene
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When you consider testing ways to improve your direct mail’s response rate, you probably think first about experimenting with a different headline or a more compelling offer. But while it may not be top-of-mind, testing your data hygiene decisions can be every bit as important as testing your creative. Data hygiene decisions can have a[...]
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How to Leverage Prospect Research to Improve Donor Response

February 3, 2016
Leverage Prospect Research
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A guest blog by Ryan Woroniecki Do you ever feel like you’re just mailing into a void? Like your letters and packages are entering some no man’s land? Well, you don’t have to feel that way. Not with the help of prospect research, at least. Whether you want to take a DIY approach to prospect[...]
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Using Data Hygiene to Maximize Your Direct Mail’s ROI

January 25, 2016
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You’ve agonized over every word in the copy, spent hours with your designer perfecting the layout, and tested multiple calls to action. You’re finally ready to release your incredible direct mail piece into the world, right? Not so fast. Following strong data hygiene principles can be every bit as important to your mailing’s return on[...]
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How CASS Certification Improves Mail Deliverability

January 20, 2016
CASS Certification
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  The introduction of the nine-digit zip code in 1983 ushered in a substantial improvement in mail delivery. The additional 4 digits allow each street (and sometimes each house or apartment building) to have its own unique zip code, dramatically improving the accuracy of both automated mail processing and sorting at the local post office.[...]
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How to Handle Addresses with Questionable Delivery

December 7, 2015
Addresses with Questionable Delivery
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What should you do with records that are flagged as potentially undeliverable during the CASS Certification process or while being run through the National Change of Address (NCOA) database? It depends upon the type of error that CASS or NCOA identifies CASS Rejects and NoPlus4 Records: If there’s a major problem with the records – there’s[...]
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Save Money by Not Mailing to Certain Addresses

November 16, 2015
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One of the best ways to increase the return on investment of your direct mail is to cull certain types of addresses that are unlikely to be responsive from your list. While there are undoubtedly businesses that would find it profitable to mail to one or more of the following categories of addresses, most will[...]
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