Can’t Go Beyond Hotline Names?

The following is an excerpt from the Direct Marketing Association’s 2005 Customer Prospecting and Retention Report. To learn more about the report, visit www.the-dma.org.

Hotline names work fine, but if you can’t make the full file work for you, then try “custom list models,” says David Shepard, president of Dix Hills, NY-based David Shepard Associates. The idea behind a custom list model is that the list owner can use the information in his database, information not available to you, to predict the probability of one of his customers eventually responding to your offer.

Custom match rate models apparently work for 50% of respondents–a little more for the larger firms and for the consumer-only companies–but there’s a significant acceptance across all segments. Note that the “tried that but failed” rate is exceptionally low, which is another reason to call your broker and identify those large list possibilities.