WHEN BUSINESS DATA RENTAL GOES WRONG

Case Study Thursday! With multiple data rental options and even reputable business data source companies, it’s possible for mailings to go wrong —very wrong.

I recently received eight cards from the Production/Ops area and placed them on my desk. Eight cards from the same mailer were a bit unusual, and even more unusual when I saw the names on the cards:

• Gina Lynch
• Jasmine Bustamante
• Ashley Kay
• Bria Parker
• Michelle Allen
• Valerie Truitt
• Sheila Ce
• Sherri Meade

On the surface, there’s nothing highly unusual here, although I personally might not have recommended that someone mail to eight people at the same company without having unique departments. But here’s what’s really unusual — none of these people work here in my office. Who are these people?

I took some of the more unusual names here, and I couldn’t even put two of the same names reliably on the same page as originating from the same LinkedIn company, university, etc. So, I got curious… how did this (how does this happen)? We called the company and notified them, but the interesting thing is that I notified them a month ago — these are the second round of cards.

Apologies were offered, but apparently, data was sourced from “a relationship with ZoomInfo.com” if my notes are correct (and they were correct). I went to ZoomInfo.com, which touts itself as “Get the best AI-powered B2B data and software you need to connect with and close your most valuable buyers – all in one operating system”, but if data were sourced from here, I was still in the hunt for answers. Once I Googled my own company profile on ZoomInfo, it made more sense — here it is (unless this gets fixed later on) https://www.zoominfo.com/pic/cornerstone-services-inc/30265666 — all the names of the supposed people at “Cornerstone Services”, but they had the wrong company! Some coding script at ZoomInfo just grabbed most of the “managers” at this other “Cornerstone Services” and these names became management contacts for my company… fascinating.

So, let’s cut to the chase. Here’s how you avoid this, and here’s how you get your addressing correct, let alone your data list:

(1) Never do this with addressing to a business [using “Sally Smith” as an example]: “[Sally Smith] or Current Business”. Sally isn’t a business — she’s an employee. It looks bad and certainly doesn’t impress Ms. Smith upon arrival.

(2) Of course, use the Company Name. Here, “Cornerstone Services, Inc.” (which I assume was their intention) is missing on all these cards

(3) Before you do a big mailing, making a big commitment with untested data, do a random sampling of at least 1 to 2 records per 1,000ct names. If you are renting a list of 10,000ct records, then you’re only looking at 25 to 50 records per list… a reasonable number to ensure data quality.

(4) Before you do a big mailing, get a commitment in writing of data quality with a clawback clause, if possible, of what happens if the data is more than 10% incorrect (unfortunately, having a business list have 10% incorrect names is not unusual, but you want to protect yourself against gross errors, with potential financial compensation for extreme situations).

(5) Ask questions about how the data was sourced. Here, we can only speak to our own experience, but since we’re just talking about Cornerstone Services… this mailing is “0 for 8” twice now.

(6) Don’t send large numbers of cards to the same company — pick two or three names at most. If you do want to send a large number of cards, in a reasonable size/context of the number of employees (hint-hint), then at least include departments, and of course, include the company name!

(7) Stagger the mailing when mailing to multiple people in the same organization. If you mail in lots or groups of 2 or 3, you won’t run into a situation of 8 cards all arriving at once. For a small office like ours, when we see this many cards arriving unsolicited all at once, they tend to go in the trash, wherein one or two cards might actually get reviewed.

If you or someone you love is in danger of not getting professional guidance in direct mail, help is available. Email us at info@crst.net or call us at (845) 255-5722. Visit us at www.crst.net or www.crstweb.com. Real people, real answers… here to help.

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Image Credits: CRST Project Management / Graphic Design services (www.crst.net)