List Manager

The list decides the result of every mailing, so the list gets chosen on what an order actually costs.

Your List Manager chooses who each mailing goes to, and in direct mail that matters more than anything else in the campaign. The same piece sent to a better audience routinely doubles the return, and no amount of good writing fixes the wrong names.

It works your own customers first. The people who have already bought from you respond several times better than any list you can rent, and the ones who bought most recently respond best of all. Your own file gets segmented and mailed before a dollar goes to an outside list.

It reads a rented list sceptically. Where the names came from, how old they are, how often the file is updated, what it costs, and what it would have to produce to be worth it. If something on the card stops it, you are told which thing.

It tests before it rolls out. A sample first, read properly, then the rest — never the whole file on the strength of a description.

It ranks every list on what an order actually cost. Not on response rate, which flatters expensive lists. Lists that stop earning their place get dropped, including ones that used to work.

It keeps your house file honest. Growth, decay, who has gone quiet, and who is worth a reactivation attempt before they are gone for good.

You approve every list order and every rollout.