Asks to chronic non-responders fall on deaf ears. Here’s how to make the most of those names.

By Bob Blackstone

In identifying and scoring a non-responder, you should go back approximately 12 months, or eight to 12 previous mailings. (Notify your service bureau in advance so it can archive enough mailings to create the non-responder file.) This is called a “build.”

Within each build, the non-responders are marked and then scored. To use the build in your future merges, decide whether you want to score the hits to your chronic non-responder output file or drop them. To keep the build updated, all future merges after the initial build should be included to continue to update and score the chronic non-responder file.