Hotline Lists and How to Mail Them While They’re Still Hot

I define a hotline select as those individuals on a list rental file whom responded or purchased within the last three months. This is the industry standard, although you will see list owners advertise their hotlines as updated every month or every week.

Why does a hotline select exist? Mailers have known for some time that many offers work best with hotline names. The theory is that people go through buying or responding phases, so hit them while they’re hot! Consequently, the quicker you can get to a person after they’ve responded to another offer, the higher your response will be. This is simply a fact of life for many opportunity seeker and low-end general merchandise mailers, and for many fundraisers. Without the availability of hotline names, they would be unable to mail profitably.

I have tested and proven this phenomenon many times. Here are actual results of a well-structured timing test of one large (50,000), hotline list selection:

The astonishing aspect of this test result is not only the huge drop off you see in just a week, but look how soon this occurs after the prospects initial response or purchase. In only a matter of three weeks, we see a dramatic drop in response to the new offer. This is why many mailers mail on a weekly basis and many hotlines are updated on a weekly basis as well. The sad truth to this very real test result is that even monthly hotlines are no longer ‘hot’, and three-month hotlines—forget it! Plus, many mailers who have never mailed real hotlines are not even aware of their potential.
I am very familiar with the typical mailing schedules for many mailers and it’s not un-common for promotions to be mailed on a quarterly basis—and that’s only half the problem. Even these quarterly mailings have lead times of months from list order to the actual drop date. Mailing January hotlines in April is common practice for many mailers.

Organizing your printers, lettershop, list broker and service bureau, not to mention your in-house support, to take full advantage of hotline names can represent a major undertaking. But if you increase your response rates as much as 40%, it’s well worth the effort. I have implemented this strategy for a few mailers and it has completely changed the way they do business, not to mention the huge increase in profits they have experienced as a result. If you have success now mailing hotlines, but are not mailing them on a weekly basis, as they become available, then I strongly suggest you test this approach.
 

Proceed to Chapter 7...