Clean Your Database

• Consider outsourcing. Kapochunas recommends outsourcing this critical activity to experts, because the process has become complex, the databases ever-larger, and many of the manual, outdated ways of list cleaning are more difficult when paired with missing or non-standard data.

• If you’re operating on a modest budget, use your promotions to help clean and maintain your customer list. For example, if you’re a b-to-b cataloger, send a list of names and addresses to your customers’ corporate mailrooms and ask the mailroom supervisors to send back corrected lists. Tip: Offer some type of incentive for their help.