Do You Purge Unwanted Names from Your Lists?

Keep your mailing lists clean Maryland residents are complaining about being bombarded with unwanted newspapers, and their local government is listening so intently that the state is proposing a Do Not Deliver registry.

It’s a story written by The Associated Press. Have you heard about it?

This registry will mirror “Do Not Call” which was enacted by the Federal Trade Commission to keep telemarketers from disturbing consumers by phone.

The complaints started soon after the 2006 launch of The Baltimore Examiner, a free paper which delivers about 230,000 of its total 250,000 circulation to Maryland homes six days a week…

According to the bill, which is “likely to run into opposition from lawmakers…who worry it could violate constitutional free-speech protections,” publishers could be fined $100 a day for delivering their papers to people who neither want nor ask for it.

Can you imagine, as a solo marketer, wasting your time and money sending your message to people who will never buy from you? The results are certainly counterproductive, and your sales records would no doubt be dismal.

That’s why we review our valuable mailing lists, purging the names of individuals who’ve moved without a forwarding address or notified us to remove them from the list. And we also encourage them to do so directly on each mailing piece with a statement such as:

If you, for whatever reason, no longer require notification from us, please pass this card to someone who does, or call us at 212-555-1212 to remove your name from our list. Thank you.

The same is true about our online communications. Individuals who wish to opt-out of our newsletters must be able to do so quickly through a link within each issue. I encourage this in my newsletter because I want my information received by interested parties and no one else.

It’s wonderful when consumers talk in glowing terms about what we sell and how we communicate. Let’s keep things on a positive note for them by only delivering our message to people who want to hear from us.

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