Many business-to-business mailers suppress prospects that are on “Do-Not-Call” list because they think these companies are protected, or would not be responsive to an offer.
But Andrew Kapochunas of Dun & Bradstreet pointed out that there is no need to suppress business names on the file, and that in fact, he says, these prospects could be worth their weight in gold.
Speaking earlier this month at MeritDirect’s co-op in White Plains, NY, Kapochunas said that while businesses register to be on the list, it is only consumer phone lines that are protected. Thousands of businesses have registered, including some Fortune 500 firms.
The only gray area is phone numbers registered to a home business, in which the telephone is used for both personal and business use. But those “hybrid” phone numbers are considered to be DNC exempt, and again, mailing to them is not an issue.
Kapochunas, who works in D&B’s customer data quality department, has advice for those catalogers who may still be afraid of ruffling prospects’ feathers by mailing to businesses on the DNC list.
“Segment those businesses and score them by the number of employees,” Kapochunas said. “No one would have a hard time convincing a chief marketer to mail to a company with 1,000 employees.”
Kapochunas said you should start with a low employee number, like 50, and then test a mailing to those businesses. If the test is successful, with a good ROI and a low number of complaints, you might test smaller companies.