Streamlining Marketing Lists
The other day, I received four copies of one publisher’s catalog. I belong to a few professional associations for information professionals that sell my name to marketers. I often receive the same piece of mail from the same companies. Usually, it doesn’t come on the same day. I often wonder whether it’s more cost-effective for the companies to send multiple pieces of mail to the same person than to run some kind of script in their address database matching names and addresses and eliminating duplicates. My name and address on the four catalogs vary slightly, but not enough that a script couldn’t figure out the mail is going to the same person at the same location. (No matter how many catalogs they send me, I don’t plan to buy their books.)
