Focus On: Lists: Prospecting Lists that Work

FS: Do you typically work with brokers, an agency or both when it comes to lists?
KC: We work very closely with our broker, May Development Services, a division of Direct Media. At St. Joseph’s Indian School, we have a dedicated staff person who is devoted entirely to list processing and selections and who works closely with our broker.

FS: What are your plans for testing in the future?
KC: We’re staying pretty conservative. Rarely have we found many of our test lists that work well. We have tried lists such as Time magazine; Smithsonian [magazine]; parts of the Reader’s Digest [file], etc., but with minimal success.

That’s not to say that we won’t try something out of the box again. We certainly could be more aggressive, but this seems to be what’s working for us; our file’s been growing about 9 percent to 10 percent a year for the past couple of years, and we’re pleased with that.

Alicia Orr Suman is a freelance writer specializing in direct marketing. Formerly editor-in-chief of Target Marketing magazine, Suman also was co-founding editor of Catalog Success magazine; she has been covering the direct marketing industry since 1989. E-mail her at aorrsuman@aol.com.