New Customer Acquisition Programs

1. New Customer Acquisition
Acquiring lists to generate buyers, donors, members or
subscribers
Presented by:
Kathy Stivaletti, Client Relationship Director
Lake Group Media
Associate Vice President, List Brokerage
1 Byram Brook Place Armonk, NY 10504
Phone 914-925-2481
Fax 914-925-2499
email: kathy.stivaletti@lakegroupmedia.com
www.lakegroupmedia.com

2. KEY WORDS & PHRASES
Core List - a continuation list that performs well for your client. It is
client specific and functions as a “control” list, while other lists are
tests.
Compiled List - a list that is prepared from directories or other printed
sources. Example: Names from motor vehicle registrations.
Data Card - Basic information about a list including: Universe, costs,
selects, source.
Direct Response List - Individuals that have responded to offers
through the mail.
Donor Lists - Individuals who have made a donation to a charitable or
fundraising appeal.
Exchange - arrangement in which two mailers swap on a name for
name basis.

3. KEY WORDS & PHRASES
List Rental - arrangement in which a mailer obtains the right to mail the
list owned by another on a one-time basis at an agreed upon cost
per thousand names on an agreed upon date.
Recency - time frame when a purchase or donation was made.
Segment - portion of a list or file selected on the basis of a special set
of characteristics (MRG time frame, dollar select, gender,
demographics).
Test List - a list that has not been used previously by the mailer.
Universe - The total names and addresses in a given list or segment.

4. Frequently Asked Questions:
Will my clients make money in acquisition?
Should my clients exchange their lists?
Should test lists be included in my campaigns?
What is an acceptable response rate or average gift?
How much will the lists costs?

5. List Strategy
What is the Acquisition goal for the client? Are they most
concerned with acquiring names (% Response) and can
they tolerate more financial loss or “investment?”
What is the % loss range for your client? What metric
does your client like to use to evaluate performance?
How much list testing do you want to recommend?

6. List Strategy
New or “Start-up” Client
All lists selected are considered tests.
Best types offer affinity to mailer’s offer.
Rental/Exchange Strategy
It is a positive to have a list to exchange!
Foster exchange relationships with lists that perform best for
your clients
Exchanges yield higher results and keep package costs
lower (BUT they are not FREE!)
Ratio of rental to exchange lists can be client driven.

7. List Strategy
• Re-test lists that are marginal performers or haven’t been mailed in a
while
• Revise segment (drilling it down) – tighten recency, change dollar
select or apply performance based zip file
• Life Time Value (LTV) – poor upfront performance but high LTV
• Negotiate Pricing – ask for select caps, special selects
• Age segmentation and gender selects – on larger &/or enhanced files
• Mail multi-buyers (interlist duplicates) - mailed 1 subsequent piece per
occurrence at no additional charge

8. List Strategy
•Categories – lists can be sectioned into categories, such as fundraising
or commercial and subsections such as type of list within the main
category.
•List categories determine the types of lists that work for you and you
can expand upon those list groups.
•By selecting a variety of categories, you will be able to get a basis of
response and adjust strategy as you move forward.
•Fundraising lists work best for fundraising appeals

9. Exchanging Lists vs. List Rental
• A list exchange is an agreement between two mailers to make
their lists available to each other on an even trade basis. This
would be instead of charging the usual rental fee.
• Exchange balances are strictly kept to ensure that one
organization doesn’t owe another an abundance of names.
Therefore, the size of your file matters since you never want to
be put in the position where you are exchanging all of your
names with any one organization. Since a test order is typically
in the 5-10M name range, if your housefile is around 25,000
names or more, the relationship should work well for both sides.
• Your list broker and list manager should be monitoring the
exchange balances to ensure they don’t get out of whack with
one side owing too many names. Since exchange volumes
are based on gross names shipped when calculating exchange
balances, this could happen if a large mailer comes in to
exchange with you several times a year.

10. Exchanging Lists vs. List Rental
• Depending on the economics of your mail plan, a list being
approved on exchange vs. list rental can make or break your
mail plan. As you heard in the budget portion, the costs of list
rentals can add up when a list is $90-100/M. As your
organization’s mail plan grows and you start to mail in the
millions of records, list costs alone could be $100K+. If even a
portion of those names are approved on exchange, a significant
cost savings will be realized.
• Reciprocal rentals are another important topic. Some list
owners will impose an additional selection fee on those mailers
who do not want to reciprocate a list rental with them. This cost
could be upwards of $20/M per list or an additional $1000 on a
50,000 name mailing. Just imagine how quickly those fees
would add up as your mailings grow! Being open to exchanging
names or reciprocating can save you real dollars.

11. Mailing Budget
Clients provide different drivers for their budget:
•Mail 50,000 names: How much will that cost? Each list has a different
cost but, generally, 50,000 names would be:
50,000 x $90-100/M = $4500-$5000
•A 50,000 name test mailing typically means we can mail 5-10 different
lists with a 5,000 name minimum.
•Additional data processing fees, NCOA, postal qualification, etc could be
an estimated additional $1500. Dependent on quantity and number of
lists into merge.
•Lettershop services would be additional based on the size and weight of
your piece.

12. Mailing Budget
I have $5K to spend, now what?
We take that figure and work backwards. Using the previous scenario,
$4500 will allow us to test 50,000 names. That will eat up most of our
$5K budget so I would then advise that we consider less lists going into
the mail plan.
For example: 25.000 x $90-100/M = $2250-2500 for the lists.
• Now we have 3-5 lists so you will have fewer options if you need to stay
strictly within this budget.
•Additional DP fees would be about $1100-1200 (driven by the quantity
of names into the merge, services applied such as NCOA, postal
qualifications, etc.)
•Again, lettershop is dependent on your mail piece

13. List Research
 How do we define Continuation”lists?
 How do we find Test lists?

14. List Research
How do we find lists?
Research Tools
List Performance History
SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service)
NextMark
Data Cards & List Usage Reports
Recommendations from list managers
Publications
E-mail Promotions
Conferences and Meetings

15. List Research
Continuation Lists
Core Lists: Study the Statistics! List Performance History
• Determine Your Criteria/Know Your Goals
o Is your client focused on growing their file (% response)
o Is your client focused on minimizing investment ($)
• Choose metric based on client or agency preference, using our
analysis tools.

16. List Research
Test Lists
Why do we need to perform list testing?
Ultimately, to get more names. Testing can expand the
universe of names that will work for a client. New lists will
begin to perform and become new core lists, while other
lists will drop from core list status.
If we only mail our current core lists, some of those lists’
performance will decrease resulting in fewer names to mail
if we are not continuously bringing new names into the
game.

17. List Research
Test Lists
• Testing an appropriate quantity
(usually about 10-15% of overall
mail volume)
• Expanding segments
• Testing formers/expires

18. List Research
Test Lists
Looking at a Datacard…
Datacards provide basic information needed to order a list.
Factors to be considered:
•List description
•Universe, selects & pricing: How many names are available, what
segments, and for what cost?
•Rental or Exchange?
•Source – Where do the names come from (direct mail, direct response,
surveys, internet, compiled)?
•List Usage – Sometimes usage is on the datacard.
•Gender Ratio (some clients might be geared more toward one gender)

19. Competitive Analysis
• Ask your broker to perform a competitive analysis so
you can see which lists are performing well for similar
mailers in your space
• Competitive List Usage – identifies which lists are
being used by your competitors – going so far as to
show the number of competitive mailers using each
list. This is a great way to identify new test ideas!

20. Competitive Analysis
Competitive Analysis
LIST NAME Boys Town Father
Flanagan's
Boys Town Of
Missouri
Covenant
House
Hanna Boys
Center
Mercy Home for
Boys and Girls
Omaha Home
For Boys
Grand
Total
CRS AMERICANS HELPING AMERICANS IN APPALACHIA     4
EASTER SEALS DIRECT MAIL DONOR MASTERFILE     4
FOOD FOR THE POOR CATHOLIC DONORS     4
NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS MEMORIAL FUND     4
ST JOSEPHS INDIAN SCHOOL DONORS     4
ALZHEIMERS ASSOCIATION DONORS    3
CHILDRENS HUNGER RELIEF FUND    3
FOOD FOR THE POOR DONORS    3
HELP HOSPITALIZED VETERANS DONORS    3
LIGUORIAN CATHOLIC DATABASE    3
NATIONAL CHILDRENS CANCER SOCIETY    3
NATL COMM TO PRES SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE    3
OBLATE MISSIONS DONOR FILE    3
OMAHA HOME FOR BOYS DONORS    3
OUR LADY OF VICTORY HOMES OF CHARITY DONORS    3
PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA PREMIUM DONOR MASTERFILE    3
SALESIAN MISSIONS    3
ST ANTHONY MESSENGER ACTIVE SUBSCRIBERS    3
ST LABRE INDIAN SCHOOL    3
AARP MEMBERS   2
AMERICAN DIABETES ASSOCIATION DONORS   2
ARTISTIC DIRECT CORPORATE MASTERFILE   2
ASIAN RELIEF ACTIVE DONORS   2
CATHOLIC DIGEST MAGAZINE SUBSCRIBERS   2
CHECKS UNLIMITED   2
CHILDRENS WISH FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL   2

21. Mailing Schedule
Typically, we start with your mail date and back up our mail
schedule from there.
•Develop List Recommendations (including segmented list
counts & forecasted costs) Normal Turnaround Time: 2-3
business days
•Process List Orders
Normal Turnaround Time: 3-5 business days
•Coordinate Merge Purge
Normal Turnaround Time: 2-3 days
•Analysis Reports
Normal Turnaround Time: Provided weekly until campaign final

22. Mail Plan
•Mail planning incorporates all your historical data and uses that
knowledge to predict the most successful mailing for you going
forward.
•Standard reports offer literally hundreds of mailing, response,
and financial variables, sorting on any data item, flexible and
dynamic sub-totaling and indexing, and actual vs. plan
comparisons.
•Projections for next-time-out list performance, seasonality and
package adjustments can all be studied.

23. Mail Plan
Complete Mail Planning
•We develop complete mail plans for clients using our
statistical analysis tools
•Analyze past campaigns
•Develop comprehensive mail plans based on past results
•Evaluate list and package tests
•Budget – explore “What If” scenarios

24. Mail Plan
•Your response data is imported from Excel into our response analysis tool.
•Once your historical data is imported, list names and selects are standardized
•List CPM’s, merge purge % and total list costs are transferred for use on future
mail plans.
• Update information including response rate, average order or donation &
package costs are updated for future mail planning
•Index-Based projections adjust for seasonality
•Weighted Results – based on recency and volume – for better predictions of
future results

25. Brokerage Process
Analyzing current and prospective markets to determine list
sources to be used
Developing strategies for most effective use of available lists
(exchange, rental, or appropriate mix to achieve specific goals)
Researching new lists to test – SRDS/Nextmark, email promos,
conferences
Maintaining a History of Performance which includes results and
package information.
Negotiating with list managers for profitable list selections on
rentals and exchanges.

26. Brokerage Process
Obtaining appropriate clearances and developing list plan
Reviewing of the finalized campaign by the list director (to ensure
accuracy & assess strategy - taking into account seasonality and
packages being mailed) and the client.
Ordering the lists and maintaining contact and correspondence
from inception of order to the delivery of names
Coordinating with computer service bureaus all pertinent
information to ensure correct application and understanding of
merge/purge, personalization or carrier presort systems.
Evaluating responses to determine results of campaign objectives
and ascertain future plans

27. Brokerage Process
OBSTACLES: You can’t always get what you WANT!
• Some mailers do not make their list available. (St Judes, Salvation
Army)
• Denied because they don’t like our sample.
• Their cause is too similar
• Exchange balance is too high
• List is available on Exchange only and they aren’t interested in using
your list. YOUR list doesn’t work for them!
• They are already booked; 1st come-1st serve
• Calendar not available
• Your list manager denied them previously
• No response or no reason given for denial

28. Brokerage Tips
List Strategy Discussion- Meet with client and/or agency at least once
annually to discuss acquisition strategy and discuss mail plan.
Start reserving your core lists (your best names) up to 6 to 9 months
in advance (sample mail piece needed)
Test! Test! Test! – BUT Never roll out to entire list after only one test
Re-mail multis

29. Brokerage Tips
Analyze each list based on net income per donor, response rate %,
average gift and mail volume
Keep in mind that response rate % and average gift work in opposite
directions. Typically, a list with a high average gift has a lower
average response rate as few individuals are willing to give more.