In yesterday’s All Things Considered program on National Public Radio (NPR), they aired a story "Clinton’s InfoUSA Ties Scrutinized."  As a fan of NPR, I was greatly disturbed by the sloppy reporting on this piece.  It seems to me someone (or group of someones) is out to get Hillary and/or infoUSA and fed NPR the story but did not give them good leads to follow up on their facts.

The purpose of this story is to correct the mistakes NPR made in their story where they reported that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is selling their mailing list to infoUSA. 

First and foremost, the Hillary Clinton’s mailing list is not on the market.  If it were, we would know about it because we maintain the most comprehensive database of mailing lists available.  A hot list like that would surely take notice and our clients (some of whom work for various political campaigns) would demand we track it down if we did not have it already. There are certainly a number of Hillary-related lists on the market, but none of them are sourced from her campaign.  You can see for yourself by searching on "hillary" with the mailing lists search tool on our website here: http://lists.nextmark.com/.

In case you are wondering, NextMark does not endorse Hillary but rather supports all candidates and a fair democratic process.  Our tools are used by all political parties to reach voters that are sympathetic to their cause.  So, I am not coming to her defense because of a personal agenda.  But I feel obligated to call out what appears to be an underhanded campaign trick and a misrepresentation of the business.

Second, although not as significant as the first, the information they reported about the alleged transaction was inaccurate.

The average cost to rent a mailing list is around $1,500.  This fact is sourced from the 20,000 list orders that run through our system every month.  In their story, NPR’s sources claim that a price of $8,225 was unusually low.  That price seems reasonable to me.  It all depends on the number of names rented.  A typical mailing list will cost around $100/M (per thousand) for a one-time anonymous rental and that rate will be discounted by volume.  The so-called expert in the article said the list should go for $800,000 — that person is misinformed.  If you do the math, that would indicate a rental of at least 8,000,000 names.  Unless a credit card company was doing the rental, I highly doubt you would find an extraordinarily large transaction like that.

The NPR reports "But most intriguing of all was the renter of the Clinton list: a list brokerage company that is a subsidiary of one of the data-collection industry titans, Info U.S.A."  infoUSA is the biggest company in the business and they are involved in a very significant percentage of transactions — by some estimates they are involved with more than 20% of the transactions either buying or selling — so it’s not surprising at all that they would be involved with at least one transaction with any given mailing list.  In fact, it would be more surprising if they were not involved in some of the transactions.

The Clinton campaign denied these allegations by responding that "lists were rented out by her 2006 Senate campaign committee — and that the rentals took place before she began her formal campaign for president last January."  NPR casts doubt on this response by saying "That would mean the rental fees went unpaid for at least 11 months. Starke, the analyst, cites Info U.S.A. data showing that on average, it settles accounts within 64 days."

The list rental business is a crazy business when it comes to the collections process.  As the list broker, infoUSA would not be directly on the hook to pay the rental fee on time unless it had signed a letter of guarantee, which would be unusual for such an established company.  Instead, it would be the mailer that infoUSA was representing that would be on the hook for the payment.  When the mailer paid infoUSA, then infoUSA would turn around and pay the list owner, which in this case was the Clinton campaign.  If the mailer was slow in paying (perhaps a bankrupt political campaign?), then the list owner would be slow in getting paid.

So, although it’s unusual to wait 11 months to get paid, I find it very plausible that one transaction in all their transactions they do would take that long.  Again, I would find it more surprising if they did not have at least one deadbeat customer in all the customers they serve.

As far as the shareholder issues, that’s not my area of expertise so I won’t comment on that other than to say that’s an old story that keeps getting dug up.

Finally, I should mention that infoUSA is a customer of NextMark’s just like most other companies in the business of buying or selling mailing lists.  I felt obligated to write this story on behalf of the entire industry because there is a general misunderstanding about how this business works and this story by NPR is just the latest of many stories that misrepresent the way that mailing lists work.  Although it might be too much to hope for, it would be nice for once to read about how mailing lists are used for good — such as how they helped a new business get off the ground or how it helped a non-profit organization to raise the funds it needed to find a cure for cancer.

It’s been proven many times, direct marketing yields the highest return on investment for your marketing budget.  Talbots proves this again as it shifts its marketing budget to direct marketing.  According to a DM News article:

The Talbots Inc. will reduce costs by $100 million over the next two years, including reducing its marketing budget by eliminating TV and national print advertising and redirecting half of the money from these areas to direct marketing.

“Talbots will make strategic investments in areas that it believes will have the highest potential benefits to rebuilding its brand,” said Trudy F. Sullivan, president/CEO at Talbots, during a conference call for analysts. “For example, eliminating TV and national print advertising this year will enable Talbots to fund greater customer outreach through increased catalog prospecting and Web-based marketing.”

Talbots already knows a lot about direct marketing and learned through from its 2006 acquisition of J. Jill.  This deep knowledge will help them succeed with their marketing strategy.

Last week I read about the Direct Marketing Association’s plans to eliminate the List Day Conference.  My first reaction?  Bad move.  After thinking about it for a few days I am convinced it is a step backwards for the DMA and the marketing community.

List Day was the DMA‘s only conference of the year devoted to educating people about mailing lists and the list business (unless you include Fast Forward, but that’s another topic).  Why should it be preserved?  Quite simply, mailing lists are the single most important factor affecting the outcome of every direct marketing campaign and there is a general lack of understanding on how to best utilize mailing lists. 

I am guessing the DMA is making a "business decision" to eliminate the conference because it is not profitable enough for their standards. Attendance at List Day is waning: since 1999, attendance has steadily fallen and had only 275 attendees last year (and probably only half of them were paid attendees).

However, the bad attendance does not justify their decision to cancel the conference.  They should have tried to fix it instead of throwing it away.  As far as I can tell, there was no effort to fix.

If the DMA is truly committed to helping its members to improve their marketing campaigns, they should fix the problems and hold this conference.  After all, good mailing lists are at the heart of every success direct marketing campaign.

Last month, I blogged on "Why do politicians ignore the do not call list?" that proposed that politicians should follow the do not call list and have truth in caller ID.

I know now more than ever this is the right thing to do.

I live in New Hampshire and tomorrow is our vote in the democratic primary — it’s the first in the nation (by state law, by the way) and is very influential because of its bellwether position.  With that influence and the results from last week’s Iowa caucus, all the campaigns are now doing a full court press on New Hampshire’s citizens, like myself.

Over this past weekend, my phone was ringing off the hook.  I would guess it rang at least once every 30 minutes, which is unusual (no teenagers in my house).  I was reluctant to answer any call because they were most likely political endorsements that I did not want to hear.  There was no way to tell for sure because the calls came through as caller ID "New Hampshire 603-000-0000" or "Virginia" or "Info Systems" or some other deceiving text.  But I was 99% sure they were political call and they never left a message.  The only message I got was a really odd one "[loud voice] George W. Bush [long pause then weasel voice] This has been a paid political announcement." 

Somebody should put a stop to all of this.  It’s just wrong.