Responsiva are UK Leading Email, Mailing and Data List Brokers

Data List Brokers

There are two types of business that supply marketing data lists; data list owners and data list brokers. So what are the differences and which would be best for your company’s marketing?

Data List Owners do (as the title states) own the data they supply. They update the data themselves too, typically with a team of outbound telephone marketing executives who regularly call and update each record.

Several of the data list owners also have regular inward data feeds, from sources such as the BT OSIS Database. Specifically, whenever a new telephone line is registered, one of the first questions asked is whether the line will be residential or commercial. The commercial ones feed into the telephone directory listings databases. Whilst some data list owners (who utilise the BT Osis file) have a database of around 1.5 million records, other data list owners home in on the largest 200,000 – 300,000 businesses in the UK and seek to broaden their knowledge base within those companies. Examples include gathering multiple contact names and email addresses for job roles such as Finance, HR, IT, Marketing & Sales.

Data List Brokers operate differently, owning no data lists themselves but brokering the data from the data list owners (or indeed other data list brokers). So this raises a very valid question; why on earth would any business benefit from sourcing their marketing data from a list broker when they could go direct to the data list owner? There are actually three very good reasons, and each in its own right is reason enough to consider a list broker over a list owner.

Three Reasons to Source Your Data From a List Broker

1. Price

Despite the hype about quality, service, value and everything else, price is always a major influencing factor when buying anything. Because list brokers by so much data throughout the year, they enjoy a considerably lower rate for the data list owners’ data, or operate on a percentage commission deal. So it follows that the list broker pays a lower rate for the data than the end purchaser would if they went direct. This difference not only allows a little room for the list broker to make a margin, but also some of that margin can be passed to the end customer. This is not such a different concept to the insurance market; do you go direct to the insurance provider or to one of the price comparison sites who can broker a better deal on your behalf?

2. Independence = Quality Assurance

Every data list owner will tell you how fantastic the quality of their database is. But the list brokers, by the very nature of their operation, are in a position to provide an independent decision as to which data list sources to work with. There are some very weak data list sources on the market (for example, high volumes of mailing returns or telephone dead numbers) and it is factual that these list sources tend to be avoided by the reputable list brokers. If a list broker receives a lot of complaints about the data lists they supply then what do they do they do about it? Normally if the problem is not rectified then they change their supply to another data list owner. And for that reason there is a greater independent quality assurance provided by a data list broker.

3. Breadth of Data

The largest single ‘independent’ data list source has about 1.5million of the potential 2.5million business data list records from the UK. Some of the high-end list brokers have amalgamated several list sources to make a single, united database. Those databases are typically in the region of 2.5million records (or 3 million if you include certain business types Responsiva would regard as anomalies). What this means to the end purchaser is that if you are buying every business record within (say) a certain postcode area then you would get more data to your specification, a wider breadth of data fields (such as contact names) and a more holistic approach to your market.

Responsiva are a data list broker, affiliated to other data list brokers. This enables Responsiva to ensure that the lists supplied are always amongst the best the market can offer and at a price which is very reasonable. For more information on this subject call 0800 118 5000 or send an email to info@responsiva.biz