Lists

There are many sources of educational mailing lists - one of which is ourselves, Hamilton House Mailings plc.   You will of course be drawing your own conclusions as to which company you wish to buy from, but in doing this you might like to note some of the following (pointers which we think are important - but which are, of course, part of our selling campaign)

Guarantee.  All educational mailing lists should be guaranteed deliverable at least to the 98% level, with a payment back to you of four times what you paid in the first place if the list exceeds that level of gone-aways.   This guarantee should be in writing.

Quality control.  Royal Mail offers its own quality control programme, and you would expect anyone dealing in educational direct mail to be a member.  A higher level of quality control is guaranteed when the company has ISO9000 quality control certification.

Choice of media.   You should be able to buy the list on labels, on disk, or as an attached email.

Usage.  Most firms sell their lists at different prices depending on the level of use - typically once use, one year licence, re-use for ever.   Anyone offering a list for unlimited use might appear to be offering a good deal, but since you are going to be paying a lot for postage etc with each mailing it might be worth looking at the guarantees for completeness and accuracy.

Completeness.  It is doubtful if any firms offer a guarantee of completeness, simply because in a list of 30,000 it is always possible somehow to miss out someone.   But do be careful - a list of 30,000 educational addresses might sound like a list of ALL schools, but could in fact be a list of some schools, some nursery schools, some playgroups etc.  If reaching every school is important to you see the section on comparative numbers.

Checking rate.   How does the supplier check the accuracy of the list on a regular basis?

Removal of schools that don't want mailing.  A small number of schools don't want to receive mail.  If you send it, the administrators throw it out, and it never gets to the teacher - or worse they send it back to you with a very nasty letter.  It is therefore worth asking if there is a list which excludes schools that don't want to receive direct mail.  There should be no extra expense for this, but it will save you some money by cutting out pointless postings.