|
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you provide some background information on LifeWay
Prospect Services?
What are the costs for placing an order?
How long does it take to receive an order?
Who do I contact if I have problems with an order?
What is suppression?
What are the requirements for uploading suppression files?
How can I convert my list order to labels?
Can I use the list multiple times?
How does radial selection work?
Why am I getting prospects further away than the distance
specified?
Where does the list data come from?
Can I make a custom order?
Are there any other resources?
Can you provide some background information on
LifeWay Prospect Services?
LifeWay Prospect Services provides today’s churches with an efficient marketing
vehicle to “toss out their net”. Powered by Conclusive Strategies’ powerful
geographic association technology and taking advantage of LifeWay’s cooperative
purchase arrangements, churches of all sizes can take advantage of customized,
cost-efficient methods for performing ongoing outreach to their surrounding
community.
When a church first considers using direct mail, the channel can seem too
expensive -- after all direct marketing is something only big companies do,
right? That might seem like a legitimate train of thought, but actually it
reflects misconceptions about the costs of marketing lists and the
cost-justification for running direct mail.
The cost of obtaining a direct marketing list depends largely on the way an
organization approaches it. If a single church were to try to obtain a list on
its own from the “mega-providers”, it can indeed be very expensive because
these companies have business models predicated on handling very large orders
from big corporate customers (not relatively small orders from small friendly
churches!). As a result, they generally impose minimum fees of $100-250 for
even the smallest of orders.
For most churches the only plausible way to get lists at relatively reasonable
cost is to work through a provider that works with their customers on a
cooperative basis. LifeWay’s prospect services list organization offers just
that type of benefit to its customers, enabling its customers to arrange list
orders at a fraction of the cost entailed with going to the big guys. Churches
who subscribe or order from LifeWay Prospect Services can generally receive a
list of local new movers or neighborhood households at 20-25% of what they
might otherwise pay, with a product tailored to their specific needs.
Unfortunately the historical use of churches’ mailing lists has been focused on
new mover visits. Volunteers from within the church visit new movers to say
“Hi” and “Welcome to the community”. New movers, however, aren’t the only
people seeking salvation, and churches shouldn’t constrain their message to
only the small number of people that their volunteers can visit! Those are
unnecessary constraints and work at odds with the goal of reaching out to as
many individuals as possible on a consistent basis..
The more aggressive marketer spends more, touches more households and empowers
the mailing to do some of the “legwork”. They recognize that the more efficient
approach to the church outreach is to blanket all nearby individuals and
families and also perform outreach to specific audiences within the locality
who match upcoming church events.
Well designed, professional marketing pieces will attract many households to
reply to direct mailing on their own. Volunteers may still conduct visits, but
their efforts need not be the deciding point on whether an outreach is
successful. A healthy church generally seeks to reach more individuals than
volunteerism alone can drive. LifeWay Prospect Services reinforces and
supplements your outreach and ensures that your organization reaches as many
people as possible with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
What are the costs for placing an order?
See pricing for a complete list of costs.
How long does it take to receive an order?
One time custom orders (except New Homeowners and New Parents) are run each Wednesday
and will be delivered within 3 working days. Subscription orders along with
New Homeowner and New Parent orders are run on the 16th of each month and are delivered
within 3-5 working days. Direct Mail orders are run each Wednesday. Mailing is
completed within 7 days of list generation.
Who do I contact if I have problems with an
order?
All initial customer service needs are handled via email. If you have a
question about a specific order, please include your name, phone number,
and order number in your email along with a problem description.
Contact us via email.
What is suppression?
Suppression refers to the process of excluding church members or previous
campaign prospects from list products. Member suppression is done because many
outreach messages are specifically tailored to pull those outside of your
congregation into the church, and your current membership may consider it
unimpressive, perhaps even insulting, that your church didn’t somehow
understand that they are already within the church! Suppressing your membership
is a way of honoring your existing membership while reducing costs associating
with mailing to those already within the fold.
What are the requirements for uploading suppression
files?
An uploaded file must be in comma-delimited (CSV) file format. The first row
should not include column names, and text fields should not include delimiters
such as single or double quotes. The required field layout is:
| First Name,Last Name,Address,City,State,Zip Code |
For example,
| John,Smith,748 Goldsmith Ave.,Los Angeles,CA,90249 |
| Joan,Thomas,1300 S. Main St.,Los Angeles,CA,90245 |
To save an Excel file in a CSV file format, open the Excel file. Under File
choose Save As. Enter a file name, and then select the CSV (Comma delimited)
option under Save as type.
How can I convert my list order data to labels?
You can do this using a tool such as Mail Merge, which is part of Word.
Can I use the list multiple times?
No. You can only use a list one time. Please place a new order for each use of
a list product. Thank you.
How does radial selection work?
The diagram below shows a church and a five-mile ring around the church, and is
an example of how radial selection is used in LifeWay Prospect
Services. The distance computation is between the Zip+4 centroid
(if available) of a church and the Zip+4 centroid of a prospect. As you can
see, some zip codes would include people who live far away, and might not be
the best possible prospects for your church ministry (such as zip codes 35098
and 35057, where some people live close to the church and some live far away).
The LifeWay Prospect Services allows you to target prospects who live close to
your church – so now you can use resources more effectively by inviting fewer,
but better, prospects to your church – regardless of what zip code they are in.
* Radial processing does not cross state boundries
Why am I getting prospects further away than the
distance specified?
LifeWay Prospect Services uses a radial distance calculation between the
location of your church and the location of prospects. The map below
illustrates how drastic the difference can be between radial distance and the
driving distance one may obtain from a street map or public web site. The
driving distance between the two pin-points below is approximately 100 miles
following the road network and using South Ferry. In contrast, the radial
distance between these two points is approximately 25 miles. Driving distance
is a function of the underlying road network and traffic conditions, while
radial distance is simply the linear distance between two points.
When a quantity limit is specified, LifeWay Prospect Services randomly selects
prospects in order to get the list to the maximum quanitity specified.
Tip: If you are getting prospects too far away, shorten the distance used to
define your list selection. You may also want to verify that Lifeway
Prospecting Services has the correct address of your church.
Where does the list data come from?
Q. Why is a name on my new mover listing someone who isn't really new to that
address?
New mover information is compiled from various sources such as county deed
filings, publishers, catalogs, and telephone companies, among others. The
majority of the people on new mover lists are in fact new movers. However,
there will occasionally be instances where an individual looks like a new mover
but in fact is not. This could be due to their adding a phone line, or
transferring a publication subscription to a new address as a gift for a friend
or relative.
Q. Why does the number of people I get on my subscription order fluctuate so
much?
Last month I got 17 new movers (or new homeowners or new parents). This month I
only got 4. Changes (additions/deletions) in sources can cause fluctuations in
monthly quantities, as can the various schedules that sources report data to
the data compilers. There is also a seasonality component that will affect
monthly quantities. For example, most moves occur in the summer months).
Q. Out of my 30 new movers, there were three bad addresses that got returned.
That's 10%! Why so many undeliverable addresses?
Industry average for deliverability for a compiled file is 85%. The
deliverability rate for data delivered through LifeWay Prospect Services is
typically higher than industry standard, due to strict source and address
quality requirements. There are many reasons for returned mail. We have even
seen instances where plowed snow banks covered the mailboxes, so the pieces
were returned and marked "no mail receptacle." For new mover data, there are
many occasions where a move is temporary, such as temporarily transferring to
one house while waiting for a new house to be built, for example. These types
of situations can cause the person identified as a new mover to have already
moved again to a new address, and therefore the mail is undeliverable.
Q. Why isn't new homeowner data available all over the country?
New homeowner data is not collected in every county in the United States.
Certain counties do not make it available, or make it available but
prohibitively expensive.
Q. Where does this data come from? How do I know I'm not violating somebody's
privacy when I send him or her a letter with an invitation to my church?
All data accessed through the LifeWay Prospect Services is compiled using
public records, and is assessed for integrity based on standard rules,
regulations and guidelines that govern collection and use of consumer data.
Ethical guidelines published by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) are
followed, and the DMA's "do not solicit" list is used to remove names of
individuals who have requested that they do not receive unsolicited mail. Data
sources might include: telephone directory white pages; property/realty
records, such as property deeds; product registrations and surveys; mail-order
transactions; census data. We also encourage our customers to seriously review
their mail piece offers to make sure they don't reference any list selection
criteria, they are not misleading, and they are not offensive. This will help
the receiver of the mail piece to feel comfortable receiving the offer. If the
offer is misleading or possibly offensive, the receiver will be more likely to
object to receiving it. It is mandatory for all users of data purchased from
the LifeWay Prospecting Services to adhere to these
guidelines.
Can I make a custom order?
LifeWay is a full service marketing solutions provider. We would be pleased to
discuss special requirements. Please
contact us so that we can assist you.
Are there any other resources?
Article: Direct Marketing Comes of Age
Outreach Tips:
Outreach Tips Booklet
Top
|