Did you know that sometimes, even if you pay the lowest price for an automotive mailing list, you might be cheating yourself, and it could be costing you more than it might have by buying a higher priced list?  Click title to see the rest of the article!

Think about it – you buy a list of 10000 names for, say, $0.05 per record ($50/M), total cost $500. You congratulate yourself for buying your list at the best price out there. “Man, I did great today! I got this list at $10/M less than their competition, and saved $100!”.

Then, you mail your postcard or mail piece. It costs you $1.00 each, including creative work, printing, and postage, or a total of $10,000. So, your “sunk cost” in this project is $10,500.

The list you bought turns out to have 80% accuracy. In this case, that means that only 80% of your mailing went to the people you want to receive it. Before you start calculating return rates, ROI, profits, or anything, you have just thrown $2100 ($2000 of your mail piece cost plus $100 of your list cost) or $20% of your investment, into the garbage.

Now, let’s assume that your list cost you double. It’s $100/M, or $0.01/record. Your total list cost is $1000, and revised total cost is $11,000.  With me so far?

Let’s now assume that the accuracy of your data is 90%. You (in reality, the recipients of your mail piece) are going to throw “only” 10%, or $1100, of your investment into the garbage, right up front.  Right off the bat, you are ahead by $1000, but more importantly, you have reached 1000 more potential customers, increasing the odds that you will make more sales.

You do the math, based on your own response rates and “closure” rates on those who respond to figure out how much more you might make in sales, all for a small difference in the list price. Let’s face it, the list is the lowest cost element of your mailing. If you spend 10% or 20% or even 100% more on the list, it is relatively negligent in the grand scheme of things.

Your objective when buying a list, whether it’s postal mail, email, phone, or whatever, should be to get the absolute best list you can buy, coincidentally with the best service you can get, whatever “good service” means to you.

At Poris Data Services, we understand that the quality of the list is the most important factor. We know from many years of experience that there are a lot of REALLY poor quality lists out there. Some cost more, some cost less, but that should not be your primary focus. Accuracy should be.

Give us a call or email us today to talk about your list needs. While we specialize in Automotive consumer lists (i.e. private car owners), we can get a wide variety of all sorts of lists – B2C, B2B, Postal, Email, Phone, Cell Phone, and you will definitely like our customer service.

You can reach me (John Poris) directly at 248-535-9576 or [email protected].  Visit our website at www.porisdata.com.