Any set of pre-defined selection criteria can be established to give you the most target marketing potential. MSC will build the necessary selection fields from purchase history files, promotional files, and response files, so that selections can be made based on product ownership, recency, frequency, monetary information, etc. This information can be updated automatically on a pre-determined period (monthly, quarterly, etc.), or upon request.

Nth (Random) / Top Down / Most Recent Selections

There are many ways in which records can be selected from a universe.

An Nth or random selection gives you a cross section of the records from the universe. The norm is for the random selection to be performed geographically, so that the selected records will have the same percentage of total names in any particular ZIP code as does the universe from which the names are drawn. However, the Nth can be tailored to any appropriate variable, such as Standard Industry Classification (SIC) code, a customer type field, date ranges, etc.

A Top Down select is one that selects records at the beginning of the universe and keeps selecting until the quantity ordered is satisfied. If the select is to Top Down by ZIP code, then records are selected in a ZIP sequence starting at the lowest ZIP code.

A Most Recent select is the most common type of Top Down select, and names are selected by purchase date, most recent first.

Radius Selects

Example: "Select all addresses that are within 5 miles from a store/dealer location." Distance is measured by calculating the difference between the latitudes and longitudes of the store/dealer address and the target customer.

Usually, a distance measurement is the difference between the ZIP centroid (the center point of the ZIP code) to ZIP centroid. If desired, MSC will attempt to append the latitude and longitude based on the best available centroid information from the ZIP+4, ZIP+2 or the ZIP code.

In the example, if centroids for two adjacent ZIP codes are more than five miles apart, then every address in the two ZIP codes are considered over five miles apart using a ZIP centroid distance calculation. Using the latitude and longitude of a smaller geographic area will mean a more precise measurement of the distance.

List Select with ZIP Select/Suppress File

Frequently, a mailer will wish to select only certain ZIP codes. This may be due to a ZIP model identifying the best prospects in terms of ZIP code. Conversely, a mailer may wish to suppress certain ZIPS from the selection, maybe due to a high percentage of collection problems, or perhaps a ZIP model identified the worst prospects in terms of ZIP code. Either way, MSC provides the capability to select names with a ZIP select or suppress to accommodate these target marketing needs.

Company Name or Name & Address Selects

Occasionally the direct marketer is asked to accommodate the sales force, and a typical sales request is to have all records in the universe that belong to the same company. One way to meet this request for house file selects is to select records that have the same company name. MSC provides this service to its customers.

Another option is if the corporate linkage is incorporated into the file, then MSC can select all records that are linked to one company.

Individual / Household Selects

A select may involve selecting only one record per address, which is common if the universe contains predominately residential addresses, or selecting one record per individual when the universe contains a fair percentage of business addresses. Both are possible at MSC.