When You Don't Pay Enough Attention To Your List
When you don't pay enough attention to the list you select to mail to, you get a list which is poorly "targeted". This means the people on it are not likely to be interested in your products and services.

• A "good list" is a list which is a good match for interest in your products and services.
• A "bad list" is a list which is a bad match for interest in your products and services.

House List, Response List, Compiled List
The 3 basic kinds of lists that you can use in order of their effectiveness are:

1. Your own list of prospects and customers. This is a list that you collected with your own personal marketing efforts. This is known as a house list. These people are most likely to respond to your offers, because they have responded in the past. -You own this list.
2. A response list is a list of people that have actually done something. They have either purchased something from the people who put together the list that their name came from or inquired in response to some offer. The last way they could have arrived on the list is to have asked to be on the list. Presumably if they are on a response list the people on the list have some level of interest in the topic or purpose of the list. This type of list is less effective than your house list is likely to be. They have not previously responded to you, but have responded to someone in a related area
   (if you have purchased a correctly targeted list). This is a list you can purchase from the owner of the list or a list broker.
3. A compiled list is a list of people who were selected to be on the list because they possess the characteristics that you asked the list broker to screen for. Examples of characteristics used to target correctly may include age, sex, geographic location, income level etc. The characteristics are more fixed characteristics than response list characteristics, which are behavioral characteristics. This type of list is likely to be the least effective of the 3 list types.