What is a Mailing List? Learn How to Build Your Own!

A mailing list can be a useful marketing tool, even in the modern business world. Although many people and companies have opted to switch to digital marketing platforms, including digital mailing lists, physical mail is still a viable, and often preferred option.

That being said, assembling a mailing list can be quite a complex task. Not everyone knows how or has the skills required. By the end of this article, you should be able to build your own physical mailing list.

Why Use Direct Mail in the Digital Age?

Many people assume - since this is the age of technology - that their sole focus should be on creating a digital mailing list. They focus all their energies on digital marketing strategies, using social media marketing, email marketing, and even digital newsletters.

However, there are certain areas where physical mail can make an impact that digital avenues simply can’t. What are some examples of this, you ask? Let’s investigate some of the benefits and advantages of physical mail. 

1. Physical mail can target a specific area in a way that digital marketing never could. For instance, envision your new store in a brand new neighborhood. You need to get the word out, but you can’t send an email to everyone in your neighborhood. However, you can send physical mail to anyone in a given area.
   
   
2. Physical mail gives potential buyers and clients a tangible link that digital avenues never will. From pamphlets to small gifts and samples, there’s almost no limit to what you can send your target audience. The psychological benefits alone make it worth pursuing this avenue of communication.
   
   
3. It allows you a level of targeted communication that is difficult to achieve with digital marketing avenues. From certain target demographics within an area to certain neighborhoods as a whole, there’s no limit to the customization options.

Why Construct a Mailing List?

With the advent of options like Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM), it can be difficult to understand why businesses would want to build a mailing list. The truth of the matter is that mailing lists have a range of advantages that some other forms of mail marketing don’t have.

For instance, if you use something like EDDM, it’s a fantastic top-of-funnel tool. It’s a great way to make initial contact with potential customers, and can put you on the road to fantastic sales. 

However, if you use EDDM each time you wish to send out marketing materials, you’ll spend a fortune contacting people that you may know are unresponsive. Additionally, if you keep sending general marketing materials to a whole demographic, you lose the ability to further target niche markets.

By building a mailing list, or multiple mailing lists, it gives you the opportunity to do the following:

• Narrow down your sales funnel to specifically target people who are no longer top of the funnel.
• Send specific, and unique, marketing materials to people who fit a niche demographic you’d like to target.
• Send special promotional materials to existing clients, encouraging them to buy your goods or use your services.
• Specifically contact people who have shown interest in your product or service.

How To Acquire a Mailing List

There are a few different ways of acquiring a mailing list, and each of them is slightly different. Building a mailing list is the best option for most businesses, since it allows them to target a more specific audience. However, there’s more to it than that.

So, let’s take a look at the different ways you can get a mailing list for your physical mail marketing strategy.

Information Gathering

One way to go about getting a mailing list for your business is to gather all the information you already have in your internal records. 

If your business has been in operation for any length of time, you’ll undoubtedly have acquired a vast amount of information you don’t even know you have.

Some of the best places to find material for a mailing list include:

• Customer addresses from bills of sale and receipts
• Postal addresses from correspondence
• Leads gathered by sales representatives
• Information provided for warranties and guarantees

Buying or Renting a Mailing List

One of the most straightforward ways to acquire a mailing list is to simply acquire one from a company specializing in them. There are two ways of doing so, namely, buying a mailing list or renting a mailing list.

When you rent a mailing list, you get to use the list to a limited extent. Typically, this means you can use all the names and addresses for a single mailing session. This can be a costly endeavor, but it's often worthwhile when you’re just getting started on creating your sales funnel. 

One of the advantages of doing this is that you can construct a new mailing list using any responses you get from the people on the rented list. 

When you buy a mailing list, you get to keep it forever. Depending on the company you buy it from, they may even be able to tailor the mailing list specifically to your target audience. A good broker may allow you to define your target audience using a range of factors, including the following:

• Age demographic
• Geography
• Marital status
• Whether or not they have children

How to Build a Strong and Effective Mailing List

It’s easy to build a mailing list. However, building one that is strong and effective is a different task entirely. Let’s take a look at some of the steps involved in building a mailing list that will bring you results.

Step 1: Define a Target Audience

When you build a mailing list, there is possibly nothing quite as important as the target audience. As with any marketing campaign, knowing who you want to target is one of the fundamental pillars of a successful campaign.

The main difference with target audiences for mailing lists, however, is that you can build a slightly different one for different types of campaigns. For instance, your target audience may be 27-35 year olds in a certain area. 

However, you can have a mailing list for 27-35 year old parents, one for non-parents, one for smokers, one for non-smokers. It all depends on what you want to accomplish with the campaign. 

Some of the factors you may want to consider when defining your target audience include the following:

• Age range
• Marriage status
• Employment status
• Size of the family

Step 2: Decide Which Strategy You Want to Use

Believe it or not, the strategy that you decide to use for your campaign can make a massive difference to your mailing list.

Saturation Mailing

For instance, if you decide to use saturation mailing, you can buy a mailing list that covers an entire geographic area. This approach sends mail to every house or business within a certain area. This approach works best for businesses that target a very broad audience. 

As an example, a new grocery store may decide to send promotional flyers to all the houses within a certain radius of it. This is a logical approach since everyone needs to buy some or other form of groceries. 

This is often the easiest, and most affordable, form of mailing list to construct. Very little filtering is required, and buying this sort of mailing list is highly affordable. If you use something like Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) you can simply use the mailing lists already programmed into the system. 

Targeted Mailing 

When you use a targeted mail strategy, it’s essential to narrow down your lists more and specify them for the type of audience that you’re trying to reach. 

These lists are much harder to build. On the other hand, they’re also typically more effective since you contact exactly the people that you most want to get in touch with.

Split Your Mailing Lists Into Sublists

Segmenting mailing lists is a quintessential part of any targeted mailing campaign. There’s a broad array of different ways to accomplish this, but some of the most common include the following:

• Area-specific lists: One of the most common ways to target people is by area. This means that it’s logical to break large lists down into smaller ones based on districts or other small geographic areas.
• Demographic-specific lists: Demographic data makes another fantastic way of breaking down mailing lists. They can help you to target people with specific cultural or demographic needs. Demographic data used for subdividing mailing lists may include the following:
  
  
  • Age
  • Ethnic background
  • Gender
  • Income bracket
  • Job/career choices
  • Level of education
  • Type of residence
    
    
• Psychology-based lists: A target’s psychological profile can also play a significant factor in which kind of mailing list they’d slot into. If you’re dividing mailing lists by psychological traits, you may want consider things like:
  
  
  • Hobbies and interests
  • Lifestyle choices
  • Preferred activities
  • Values and beliefs
    
    
• Commercial lists: When working with B2B mailing lists, there are a range of other factors to consider. You can divide this type of mailing list, using the following characteristics:
  
  
  • Relevant industry
  • How many employees the business has
  • Which earning bracket the business falls into
  • The type of business
    
    
• Behavior-based lists: Sorting mailing lists by behavioral patterns can also be a useful and efficient way of categorizing audiences into smaller lists. Some of the things to potentially consider include the following:
  
  
  • Typical buying habits
  • Buying preferences
  • What the customer habitually buys, and where

Strategies for Acquiring Customer Data

When you build a mailing list, there are a few things you can do to help you acquire customer addresses in the beginning phases. Let’s take a closer look at some of these strategies.

Strategy 1: Competitions and Giveaways

One of the easiest ways to get access to the particulars of tour target audience is to have competitions and giveaways. By requiring people to complete entry forms containing their postal addresses, you’ll quickly accumulate a mailing list. 

Of course, there will be some expense involved in terms of the items for the competition or giveaway. However, if you use the resulting mailing list well, then you should make up the expenses accrued in next to no time.

Strategy 2: Loyalty Programs

Schemes like loyalty programs and other initiatives can be an extremely efficient way to gather customer data. By having them sign registration forms (containing their postal addresses, of course), you can quickly build a database containing everything you need for a mailing list. 

Naturally, these will mainly be former or existing customers, but it’s still a very useful mailing list to have. It will allow you to contact people that you know have an interest in your product. This can also help you drive sales by offering promotions and other incentives.

Conclusion

When you know how to build a mailing list, or where to get one, it can make a major difference to your ability to plan and execute marketing campaigns. However, it’s also important to know how to build and use a strong mailing list for the best effectiveness.

Whether you decide to go through the process of building a mailing list from scratch, rent a mailing list, or buy one from a broker, it’s a useful tool. Now that you know the ins and outs of how to build your very own mailing list, you’re ready to start taking on direct mail marketing campaigns. 

Need help building your own mailing list? Build one with Taradel in just a few minutes by clicking here.