List Services: How Do They Work and How Targeted Can You Get?

There are a variety of mailing lists available for your small business direct mail postcard marketing needs. Before we dig into the options available, the let’s first back up a step and make sure you’ve created a buyer persona for your perfect customer.

Creating a Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a fictional characterization of your perfect customer. Though fictional, the persona you create should be based on researched data about your perfect customer’s demographic information and behavior, versus your own assumptions about who is likely to buy from you.

You can conduct your own research to create your buyer persona using a combination of online surveys and phone interviews of your current customer base. Make sure your research involves all customers - not just your best ones. Knowing about both your “good” customers and “bad” customers will only help you further define that perfect customer and avoid attracting those less desirable. To help you paint a fictional picture of your ideal customer, in addition to basic demographic information such as age, gender, and income, collect data that will tell you what your customers value, how your product or service enhances their lives, and purchase motivations and concerns.

So that you can visualize what your end result should look like, here is an excellent example of a buyer persona from Adpearance.

Available Lists

Consumer

Consumer lists allow you to customize your list using hundreds of demographic, lifestyle, and purchase behavior filters. They are compiled using multiple data sources including but not limited to credit files, government records, telephone directories, and mail responders. These lists are updated on a monthly basis using a combination of the National Change of Address Processing System, the National Do Not Mail List, and the National Do Not Call List. This address verification process results in consumer data records that are 94% deliverable guaranteed. The QuantumPostcards consumer database contains 200 million consumers at over 135 million households in the United States.

Business (B2B)

A B2B list is made up of over 22 million business records in the U.S. This list is compiled using multiple data sources including annual reports, government filings, and telephone directories. This list is kept up-to-date with annual phone calls made to verify the information, resulting in business address records that are 90% deliverable guaranteed.

New Homeowner

This type of list allows you to reach new homeowners in all geographic areas of the United States. New homeowners are likely to be those that make immediate purchases for products they either need or want to either set up or improve their new residences. Unlike the new mover list (below), this list does not include renters - only those who have recently purchased a new home.

New Mover

This list includes new homeowners AND new renters in all geographic areas of the United States. This list can be used to help new movers make immediate purchases for products they want to set up their new residences. If your business is involved in home improvement services, such as roofing and remodeling, your best bet is likely to go with the new homeowner list as renters are typically not the decision makers in home improvement situations.

Geo-mapping

Used in concert with one of the above mailing lists, geo-mapping tools allow you to further define where your ideal prospects are located by drawing a custom geographic area on a map, and then targeting households in that area through direct mail. You can do this by drawing a radius around a specific address, or start from scratch using a blank map. Watch a brief video of how this works on QuantumPostcards using MapMail®:

Targeting Your Perfect Customer

Now that you have created a buyer persona of your best customer and understand the lists at your disposal, it’s time to use this information to build a targeted direct mail address list of potential new leads. By sending postcards to only your most ideal customers versus entire zip codes, not only will you save money, but you’ll also be more likely to garner a positive response rate, generating cost-effective leads and loyal customers.

How Targeted Can You Get?

To demonstrate how targeted you can get with mailing lists today, here is a list of some—not all—demographics you can use to narrow your list to reach your perfect buyer. We could list them all, but there are hundreds available in the consumer list alone, so this post would get REALLY long!

• Adult age
• Homeowner or renter
• Gender
• Marital status
• Length of residence
• Presence of children, number of children, and child age ranges
• Net worth
• Home market value
• Property type
• Education
• Occupation
• Ethnicity
• Purchase behavior
• Pool owner
• Vehicle lifestyle

Watch this video to learn more about how to use demographic selections to target your ideal customer using the mailing lists available here on QuantumPostcards:

You can also upload your own list and have your U.S. addresses verified following these instructions. 

At QuantumPostcards, we can’t emphasize enough how important your mailing list is to the success of your direct mail postcard campaign. The better your mailing list, the more money you will save, the better response rate you will get, and the more ideal prospects you will reach and be able to turn into loyal customers.