In the preliminary stages of your marketing campaign it’s important for you to understand if response or compiled data is better suited for you.

Pursuing a response generated campaign creates a ready-aim-fire approach. Response-generated lists are lists of individuals who have responded to some kind of direct marketing offer.  An example of this is lists of magazine subscribers. Response lists are typically of higher quality since they are based on the behavioral aspects of the individuals.  Response data is absolutely the best source for reaching specific consumers.

In contrast, compiled campaigns are more of the fire-aim-ready approach.  Compiled lists are collections of names and addressing data compiled by a third party from public records, printed directories and other information sources.  Compiled lists frequently include considerable demographic data (income, household characteristics, telephone numbers, etc).  This is the correct resource to select if you are looking to reach a broad audience (think your local pizza parlor).

I recently received a request for data containing individuals in Los Angeles that would be likely to attend real estate investment workshops. While compiled data sources may have access to records that are geo specific, segmented by income levels & household characteristics, this request would be better suited to subscribers to specific investor magazines or individuals that are actively pursuing education within the real estate industry.

Don’t be uninformed in what data is available to you.  I’m surprised on a daily basis of the variety and amounts of unique response data available to us.  All too often we see companies investing so much time & money into their creative marketing pieces to only send their material to compiled data records when there was specific targeted response data that would have produced better results.

On a response list your initial financial expense may be higher, but you have to determine if you’ll actually be reaching a more appropriate audience for your money. Do your complete math, not just face value pricing. There is a time and place to market to compiled or response lists; depending upon your offer, it’s up to you to know when that should occur.