The New List Business

Good news.

The list business lives.

Of the vendors who responded to our 2007 list use survey, a whopping 68% said their commission revenue has risen this year. And a majority reported an increase in the number of names rented.

Revenue apparently is coming in from ancillary services like modeling, analytics and campaign management.

But list executives and marketers disagreed on a key point.

Whereas mailers noted an increase in continuations, vendors pointed to a big jumpin tests.

Why the difference? It may be nothing more than the nature of the samples.

But it’s the opposite of what list vendors stated last year. At that point 35% said they’d booked more continuations, compared with 29% in 2005.

And marketers were not as upbeat as list suppliers about their 2007 volume. Nonetheless, both groups did concur on several things.

For example, more than half of the list respondents claimed greater use of e-mail names. In contrast, slightly over a third said the same of postal files. These results are in line with those from the mailer part of the survey.

The list folks agreed with their clients that it was still too early to tell about holiday mailings.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of all list respondents have seen their brokerage and management work grow this year. But lesser numbers said their revenue had gone up in these areas.

Though the sample was small, many attributed overall growth to both new and existing customers. Identical numbers cited one or the other.

Of those who responded to the question, a majority said the volume of new lists has been lower this year. But only a couple felt that more lists had disappeared from the market.

And what were the hot markets? Business-to-business services, healthcare and B-to-B products showed the greatest growth in mail volume. Publishing and utilities fell off.

Have list companies managed to halt the slippage caused by co-op databases? Possibly, given the stronger revenue and volume.

Moreover, many list firms are growing by offering a full menu of marketing services.

Their mission has changed so much, in fact, that they no longer want to use the terms