Identifying Lists That Work: The Basics

To identify the lists that work, a fundraiser has to first know his or her organization. The donor profile of your database is the best place to start when considering an outside-list acquisition program. External list donors who already have the same demographic and psychographic profile as your housefile donors are more likely to give to your organization over another one. Your donor profile might look something like this:

* Female
* Age 55+
* Income $50,000+
* Lives in Georgia
* Likes to knit and enjoys walking

Identifying common characteristics within your donor base can help you look for lists that meet a similar profile and geographic area. This is where a list broker can help. A list broker is a professional who understands the list market and obtains lists for your organization. The broker will work with you to understand your donor profile and help determine what lists to test for a mailing. The broker will prepare a circulation plan that will include the following:

* Name of list.
* Total universe size — the number of names in total that the list contains.
* Universe size to test — this will include geographic parameters, when the donors last gave, and, possibly, segmentation by gender or average donation size (e.g., $50+).
* Description/profile of the list — this describes who this list will target.
* List costs — lists are rented for a one-time mailing or are exchanged. An exchange relationship is where you trade names on one list for another’s.
* Usage — this shows what other mailers use the list, which is extremely helpful information. By analyzing usage, the list broker can identify organizations similar to yours that also mail this list. Some mailers may be your competitors.

The circulation plan will also include a budget to determine how many names you can afford to mail and a prediction of results.

Usually, a circulation plan will include primarily response lists. The first type of response list is a donor response list. These lists are proven donors who have given to an organization through the mail. Examples of these donor lists are CARE, Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Habitat for Humanity.

Other lists that work for the fundraiser are catalog lists and publishing lists. Catalog lists are proven merchandise buyers who shop through the mail. Examples of this include L.L. Bean®, Norm Thompson, Orvis® and J. Jill. Catalog buyers have a strong affinity for nonprofit offers since the demographic profile often matches (woman, age 55+).

Publishing lists are subscribers to a magazine or continuity club. Some examples of publishing lists include Time Magazine, Book-of-the-Month Club, and Martha Stewart Living.

Another type of list that a fundraiser can mail is called a compiled list. Compiled lists are aggregates of mass amounts of data derived from public sources. These public sources include automobile registrations, driver’s licenses, warranty cards and the phone book. Compiled lists work well as response lists; however, they have their place for regional offers, data modeling and data overlays (e.g., if your organization wants to overlay age on your house database records).

Start the acquisition process

Once the potential lists are chosen, the next step will be for your organization to provide a sample mailing piece, mail date and what you want to mail from the list to the list broker. The list broker then will clear the sample mailing piece with the list manager of the list you wish to rent/exchange.

Even if your sample mailing piece isn’t ready to mail, the list manager needs to provide it to the owner of the list. This protects your organization and the owner, and prevents fraudulent and unauthorized use. The list industry is often the unfair target of privacy zealots who threaten to stop direct mail. List owners, managers, brokers and mailers work hard to prevent less honorable organizations from conducting business in the mail.

Mail dates also need to be cleared since some competing organizations do not wish to drop their mail on the same day. This practice is becoming slightly outdated because many list owners do not grant mail-date protection; however, it’s important to clear the dates to be sure.

Once the list is approved, the broker will take care of ordering the list and ensuring the mail house receives it. The mail house will source-code the lists by the codes you apply. This will be important for analysis so you can tell each list apart and decide whether to continue mailing a list.

Once the lists are received and coded by the mail house, they’re run through a process known as merge/purge. The merge/purge process will eliminate duplications within lists (intradupes) and between lists (interdupes), provide postal correction for deliverability, run the National Change of Address process, run suppressions and screens, and purge against the house database since you do not wish to mail current donors.

The list broker will get a comprehensive report of how well the merge did, which can help the list broker identify the following:

* How many names fall off a list (can be helpful in negotiating list prices with the managers and owners).
* Duplication percentage by each list to the house list (can help identify what outside lists are similar to the housefile and may work well for your organization).
* What lists need to be updated more often (good feedback for list owners).
* Demographic data such as percent of male/female and geographic data (helpful in learning what areas of the United States respond best to your offer).

Determine what works

After the mailing drops, it takes an average of six to eight weeks to read results from the list acquisition. The results that should be gathered include:
* Total number of donors that responded to the mailing by list (the response rate).
* Donation amount calculated into an average donation by list.
* Cost per dollar raised (calculation of mailing costs and overall profitability).

These and other factors will be compiled into a list analysis report. A break-even point will be included on the final report to determine the lists that worked and the lists that didn’t. The broker will investigate why certain ones worked and others did not. This will help plan the next mailing, and the next circulation plan will contain the following:

* Lists to drop — lists that could not improve in performance no matter what tweaks are made.
* Lists to test — new lists that are based on intelligence gathered from the mailing.
* Lists to re-test — these lists aren’t successful enough to continue with but might warrant another try if the broker can improve the recency or dollar amount without adding additional costs.
* Lists to re-use — sometimes the list owner allows a re-use of the same list again if that pocket of names worked particularly well. Re-uses also allow a discount by the owner/manager.
* Lists to continue — these lists work well and will be continued. These are also known as continuations.

In addition to the list adjustments, there might be changes to the mail piece (copy or creative) or to the timing of the mailing that help to target the right message to the donor.

Susan Newell is a sales and account manager at Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company. Reach her at Suzanne.Newell@blackbaud.com.

This article originally appeared in the latest edition of Blackbaud’s e-newsletter, Fundraising Well.