Inviolable List Principles

3. In direct mail you can control your package, offer and product. But the rental list, vital to your success, is the one factor you really can’t control. You don’t own it. Nor did you produce it. You’re entirely dependent on outside parties for the accuracy of those data on which you base decisions. Datacards from brokers or managers are necessarily truncated — usually there’s more to a list than what’s shown on the data-card.