You Get the List You Pay For

The problem with buying a mailing list or a phone list is that the information purchased may be out of date or entirely inaccurate. Members of the ISP-Marketing list recommend vendors as well as uses for the purchased information.

[June 24, 2002]

On the ISP-Marketing list in June, CC inquired,

"Does anyone have a good resource for finding local phone/mailing lists? In the past, we've worked through newspaper ads, channel partners, and word of mouth, but we're now looking at aggressive expansion through direct mailings, telemarketing, etc."

A number of respondents recommended specific resources to consider:

[BH advised] "Check with your local printer or mail fulfillment house: they should either be able to get you a mailing list, or direct you to a good list broker."

[JB offered] "For quick and dirty information, we subscribe to the annual updates to the Select Phone Business and Select Phone Residential CDs that you can purchase from infoUSA."

[GW observed] "We're running a telemarketing campaign in our community right now: we just go to www.att.com/directory and pull up phone numbers by address, which is free. This excludes anyone who has an unlisted number, but they choose to be unlisted for a reason."

[RF suggested] "I've been using AccuLeads, which hooks into Dun & Bradstreet or Equifax for the contact info. They have a lot of filtering capabilities, and you can buy whatever info you want. I have had very few returned mailings from the lists, too, so they seem to be pretty clean."

[KC recommended] "Try ThinkDirectMarketing. I haven't used them lately, but the addresses were pretty good, and I think they even give a 250-address free trial."

Others gave suggestions on how best to make use of such information:

[BH noted] "The more specific the requirements (parameters) you put on your list, the more expensive it becomes; however, the more parameters you have, the more target-specific your list. And a highly target-specific list is much more productive than just a general (and cheaper) list."

[GW added] "This should only be a small part of the campaign you use to grow your market. We are using newspaper advertising, Internet classes at the library, Internet demonstrations at a local coffee shop, a car topper driving up and down Main Street, flyer campaigns through local businesses, and referral programs."

—End