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Much of the information is frighteningly easy to obtain. A guide published by the Quill Corp. of Lincolnshire offers public-domain prospecting tips for listmakers. Among other things, it suggests taking a look at marriage licenses, birth certificates, voter registrations, sporting and business licenses and the membership rolls of schools, churches and civic organizations. Quill advises that these lists can often be obtained through local government offices.
Amassing such information is a major investment of time and money. Hence many marketers turn to Direct Mail List Rates and Data, the industry's Domesday Book, to mine existing lists. This 4-in.-thick volume, published bimonthly by Standard Rate & Data Service of Wilmette, Ill., at an annual cost of $317, features descriptions of 10,258 rental mailing lists. The tome does not provide specific names and addresses of customers-in-waiting, but it indicates who owns compiled lists and which rolls include the names of people who responded to mailings. These "response lists" are the jewel in the direct-mail crown. According to marketing lore, if your name is on a response list, chances are good you'll buy again.
The name-trading game is now an estimated $3 billion business in itself. Rental lists, which cost anywhere from $50 to $150 per 1,000 names, are bartered not only by most mail-order houses and many nonprofit organizations but also by a few public utilities and telephone companies. List owners typically pay a 20% commission to a list broker and 10% to a list manager. Even with those overheads, some concerns make more money from the rental of their lists than from the sale of their products.
Once acquired, customer lists can be fine-tuned to an exacting degree. Suppose a financial-services company wants to identify potential clients for home-equity loans. Good list brokers will first define an audience, say, people who own $100,000 homes, have lived in them for 10 years or more and are likely to have built up substantial equity in the dwelling.
Brokers then cast a wide net. They might draw on Census Bureau data, which are available to the public, to identify geographical areas where homes fall into the targeted price range. They can tap into lists from major compilers, like Donnelley Marketing of Stamford, Conn., whose data base details the buying habits of 80 million households, or into various computerized systems that identify neighborhoods by consumer behavior. They might pay credit agencies like TRW of Cleveland and Equifax Inc. of Atlanta to draw up sophisticated demographic models, consumer profiles and potential customer lists. A thorough computer sorting of all these sources -- which sometimes includes information from up to 100 lists -- will then turn up a list of customers who might respond positively to a pitch for a home-equity loan.