I was recently looking for mail lists and came across what appeared to be a great offer from D&B Hoovers – $3,000 for up to 10,000 names. Sounds like a great deal, right? 30 cents per name is a good value.
When I spoke to the sales person, I asked how old is the list? He assured me it was cleaned every 3 months. And what’s the deliverable rate? He told me there were no guarantees but probably 90-95% of names were deliverable.
He was wrong. I estimate only 50% of the list is deliverable. Here’s why.
1. Old names. Searching the list, I found my own name there – at a company I hadn’t worked at in over 5 years. Upon further investigation, I found the names of many of my colleagues, who were also no longer at that company. That was the first sign of trouble.
2. Broken cleaning methods. Then I sent a mailout to 5,000 names including a sample of 300 where I paid for return if they were undeliverable. I seeded that smaller list with a number of fake names, to see if indeed they got returned. Only about 30 of those pieces were returned – and none of my fake names. Larger companies like Microsoft, T-Mobile and Starbucks did not send any of the postcards back, even though I had seeded all of those company lists with fake names. That was the second sign of trouble. If Hoovers was depending on companies to send back undeliverable mail, those companies were not following through. So their cleaning methods are broken.
50% at Sample Companies. In fact, I estimate only 50% of the mail was deliverable. Why? Because within that mailing there were several midsize companies where I sent dozens of postcards. A few of those companies did send back the undeliverables — and the average deliverable rate within those companies was 50%. That was the third sign of trouble.
50% Deliverable Rate
So, bottom line: the Hoovers database is hopelessly out of date — only 50% deliverable. That means not only is the cost per name 60 cents instead of 30 cents, but every postcard you print and mail costs twice as much because half of them are being wasted.
Do NOT waste your money on these outdated lists. I wish I hadn’t. D&B, a respected company, should be ashamed of itself for selling garbage like this.