Mailing to the wrong address or the wrong person is a costly mistake to your direct mail campaign.
Studies have shown that business addresses change, on average, at a rate of 1% a week. This adds up to about 1.7 million moves annually.
It's not just the company's address
In addition to company address changes, you also need to pay attention to who is still employed with the businesses you are mailing to.
A study was recently conducted in which 200 catalogs were mailed to a list of employees at one company who regularly received the catalog.
The mailroom supervisor was asked to indicate who was no longer employed with the company. It turned out that 27% of the people on the list were no longer employed there. That's more than 50 wasted catalogs. Now just imagine if you were sending 500,000 pieces!
In renting a list, always ask when the list update was made. For your database, are you using all the tools available for updating your list?
Updating your database and refreshing your list needs to be a priority. If you don't put time and effort into this, your profits will suffer and you will receive a poor response.
If you’d like some tips on how to update or maintain your database, contact me at inquire@cdmginc.com or call me at 310-212-5727.