List, Data and Segmentation
Talking To Those Who Care Most

We recommend that our clients segment their mailings by recency, dollar amount and frequency. This segmentation allows us to accomplish a couple of important goals. First, it gives us a means to measure the health of the files. The higher the proportion of names in the more recent, more frequent and higher dollar the stronger the donor file.

Of even greater importance, this regular segmentation allows us to carefully manage not only the cost of packages but even more importantly decide when to shrink selects based on frequency so as to maximize net money and divert non-performing housefile names to the prospect or other lapsed renewal efforts.

Further, segmentation assists in the development and implementation of donor upgrade programs that contribute very significant amounts of new net income to our clients.

At the same time we are maximizing the retention and upgrading of our client's current donors, we must replace those who are lost due to unavoidable attrition.

It is important to note that we have never forgotten the fundamentals of direct mail that deliver successful programs. That is why we enthusiastically use recency, frequency and dollar amount for housefile and prospect list analysis.

When evaluating direct mail names the past truly is prologue.

The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Some agencies have tried to dress up recency, frequency and dollar amount analysis calling it different names and adding arbitrary additional factors. However, in numerous cases when their programs haven't worked and Griswold & Griswold, Inc. has been called in, our analysis has shown that moving away from recency, frequency and dollar amount actually resulted in valuable names being dropped without reason.

Often these dressed up programs only add confusion and cost to the clients, which ultimately reduces their net money, and it is why we are such strong advocates of fundamental recency, frequency and dollar amount segmentation.

Griswold & Griswold, Inc. has a long history of recommending rental lists and the correct selects of those lists to our clients so as to generate the maximum number of high quality donors with the fewest number of names mailed.

Our outstanding prospecting results are impart achieved through a combination of intensive prospect list research that allows us to recommend the most advantageous select from a prospect list along with our timing of list orders within a single package and among more than one prospect package.

Before each prospect drop a detailed strategy is decided upon that will not only space mail dates of similar lists but also the design of the merge/purge.

As noted earlier, managing merge/purge strategies are critical to balance protecting the housefile of current donors from prospect packages and eliminating duplicates against the threat of over purging that will eliminate valuable donors who if asked will make a long term net money commitment to our clients.

At the same time with ever increasing postal rates, Griswold & Griswold, Inc. ensures the highest level of automation to reduce the newly threatened postal rate increases to their lowest possible levels.