The session title was "The New Way to Find Mailing Lists on the Internet". Session attendees (12) included investment bankers, international opportunity seekers, media consultants, and others who were sincere about their desire to learn more about mailing lists -- a subject that is getting lost in the multi-channel marketing mix of analytics, attitudes, and anything else that sounds new and exciting. As the host of the session, I was certainly in for a surprise.
I began by asking three questions that would help me better understand the group's knowledge about mailing lists.
"Who knows what a response list is?"
"What is a net name arrangement?"
"Have you ever ordered a mailing list?
Here's the surprise. Only a couple had any idea about the first two questions, and only a third of the attendees had ever ordered a mailing list. However, it didn't take long for the group to gain momentum. Before the box lunches were eaten, I would confidently say that the group was up-to-speed on all three of the following learning objectives:
1) Leverage free internet portals to find targeted mailing lists and usage information.
2) Monitor the success of your competitors' direct marketing efforts.
3) Uncover highly correlated lists without a statistician or regression model.
We referenced a copy of the data card for "The Swiss Colony Catalog Food and Gi
ft Buyers Mailing List" (accessible in the public domain). It was a great example because the list manager had done a comprehensive data card update to include 39 mailer usage entries, 30 list segments and selections, and all of the key source and demographic information. There were also ten highly correlated list titles including: Harry and David, Wolferman's, Lillian Vernon, Godiva, and Figis Gifts.
It was as much a learning experience for me as it was for those who attended. The group left the table with a sense of empowerment, because they could find valuable direct marketing information in the public domain. I left that afternoon with a sense of obligation to help direct marketers learn more about mailing lists, and with a renewed interest in the "Rise of Direct Marketing Freeconomics".
The $0 cost per chair (CPC) and cost per table (CPT) were also pretty good for these DMA Ask The Experts (ATE) Roundtable Sessions, especially when compared with the $143.85 CPC and $152.60 CPT for the exhibit hall. So if you're upset about the DMA's Annual Fleecing of Vendors, take advantage of the free chairs and table and hopefully we'll see more reasonable rates in 2009.
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