Q: I don't know if there is any type of Continuing Education standard, but I have a question regarding the length of time that an inactive learner should remain on a mailing list.
Our mailing list has grown quite a lot in the last couple years, and when I go to analyze the data for the purpose of determining mailing list purchase quantities, I find that I have a number of records that have been inactive for quite a few years. This decreases the amount of potential new records based on our segmenting that I am able to purchase due to budgetary constraints.
Is there any suggested amount of time after which an inactive record should be discarded?
A: This is an excellent question. There are four kinds of customers in your database:
1. Stars--those who spend a lot of money and who participate often
2. Cash Cows--those who don't spend much money, but participate frequently
3. Problem Children--Those who spend a lot of money infrequently
4. Dogs--Those who don't spend much much money and participate infrequently
LERN absolutely recommends that you reduce the amount of resources you spend on your Dogs. As you rightly point out, these resources can be more productive elsewhere. With problem children, you should devote some resources to trying to convert them to Cash Cows or Stars, but if you are not able to do so, they should go into the Dog category. And, of course, with your best customers, you want to focus the most resources. Generally, LERN defines a "dog" as someone who has not participated for two years or longer. These people are draining your resources and are giving you nothing in return.