by Obviously, those that find most of the addresses in a given area worth targeting can utilize saturation mailings saving a great deal on postage.
1. Residential saturation lists should be truly homogeneous from one source to another so can be purchased solely by price. Does everybody know Rural-Route addresses (and in most cases PO Boxes) are considered single family dwellings?
2. Careful scrutiny of the demographics of various carrier-routes allows saturation mailers to obtain saturation postage rates yet target only the most appropriate audiences. Targeting based on the demographics at the zip code level allows for saturation postage yet precludes the efficiencies available when targeting by carrier routes. You only need to saturate the carrier routes you wish-not entire zips.
3. Residential saturation lists with “names where available” allow for personalized mail on most addresses, and can greatly increase the response rate of many campaigns. However, the available names are always from out-of-date “wholesale” consumer lists, which are updated far less frequently than current-month consumer lists. Valassis, the largest saturation list compiler, doesn’t sell names.
In order to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of names-where-available saturation mailings we recommend obtaining the complete saturation list (from any source) and then merging in the contact names from a current-month Epsilon/Equifax list.
4. Business saturation lists are rarely as complete as traditional current-month lists from the largest compiler. They have most of the business addresses but if the goal is to reach all businesses saturation lists miss the home based businesses and those utilizing PO Boxes, which are available from Dun & Bradstreet (about 20% of all businesses). If businesses and not residences are the target, we recommend merging a list from the largest compiler with a saturation list to ensure maximum coverage and the lowest available postage rates.
5. Combined residential and business saturation lists are so inexpensive that beyond mailing to out of business locations, their low cost often offsets the benefits of merging it with compiled names from the largest compiler (as the home-based businesses will be picked up in the residential saturation addresses).