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In this issue:
• Marketing Article: Selecting the Right Mailing List
• Marketing Article: Press Release Credibility – Quotes and Testimonials

The business or consumer mailing list you use when launching a marketing campaign with direct mail will determine your success. If your marketing strategy involves a direct marketing campaign, you need precision targeting and creative strategies to ensure maximum response rates. We provide accurate and up-to-date data, backed by our expertise and marketing services.

Also see our new list cleaning services. 40 million Americans change their address each year. As your database ages, you will be wasting valuable marketing dollars by mailing to these addresses. Our list cleaning services update moved addresses and increase the quality of your list, helping to eliminate returned mail and increase delivery speed.

See all of our services at http://www.marketingsource.com/businesslists. Through Jan 31st, receive free peel-and-stick mailing labels with any list purchase up to 10,000 records. Just pay shipping and handling.

Selecting the Right Mailing List
by Concept Marketing Group Inc © 2006

A part of planning your postcard campaign included determining your target audience. You took the time to profile your current and potential customers to ensure your message is received by those who will benefit the most from your offer. The more specific you are about your target audience the more accurate your mailing list will be.

Mailing lists are available from a variety of companies at varying costs. What is a mailing list? It is a list of names and addresses extracted and compiled from a database of consumer and business information. At a minimum, these databases contain the names and addresses of consumers and/or businesses. Some companies specialize in databases that contain demographic information, such as income level, age, gender and occupation. Some list companies specialize in business data that includes annual revenues, number of employees, dollar amount of sales per employee, names of company officers, web sites and email addresses. These databases and the information they contain are used to select the names and addresses of those individuals you profiled when you defined your target audience.

When selecting a mailing list, the quality of the list is more important than how many names and addresses are available. An outdated list will not be helpful in getting your message to the right audience. Ask the mailing list company how often the database is updated. Ask what sources are used to populate the database. Be sure your specific target audience profile information can be used when selecting the names for your mailing list. If you want your target audience to only include males over the age of 50, you need to ensure that your mailing list company has this information available in their database so they extract only the names and addresses of males over the age of 50 for your mailing list.

Luckily these lists are available in computer usable format (i.e. EXCEL or ACCESS) so they can be used by high speed printers to automatically print the addresses on the high volumes of postcards. When requesting your mailing list, verify the mailing list format you can expect to receive from the mailing list company.

If doing a campaign targeted at current and prospective customers, remember to append your current customer information to the list received from the mailing list company. To help verify that your mailing was delivered to the names on your list, add your own name and address to the list so that you will receive your card in the same manner and timeliness as your current and potential customers.

Getting your postcard in front of your target audience, those most likely to benefit from your product or service, is very important. Select your mailing list wisely and you will increase your response rate.

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Concept Marketing Group, Inc. is a full-service marketing consulting firm with over 29 years of experience in traditional marketing - including 13 years on the Internet. Concept Marketing Group Inc. assists in developing and implementing effective sales and marketing strategies for businesses through targeted, managed, strategic marketing campaigns. Visit our site, www.marketingsource.com, email us at concept@marketingsource.com or call 800-575-5369, for more information.

Associations and non-profit groups are a powerful resource for building and expanding networking and business opportunities, finding jobs, evaluating goods and services, and industry publications.

Our database puts you in direct contact with these organizations.

Press Release Credibility – Quotes and Testimonials
by Concept Marketing Group Inc © 2006

One of the guidelines for writing an effective Press Release is to write in the third person. You want to avoid “I”, “You”, “We”, “Us” because you are reporting and not having a conversation with someone. These nouns are used in a Press Release only when they are a part of a direct quote.

Just because you are “reporting”, why should I believe you? Hopefully you have answered who, what, when, where and why and provided any facts and figures to support your statements. Providing quotes from experts in the field or testimonials from your current client(s) can give your press release the most credibility.

Let’s say your press release is going to announce performance enhancements to the lawn mower you manufacture. You have covered all the technical details about the lawn mower’s power, how long it has been on the market, its’ old vs. new capabilities, the price etc. You were fortunate enough to design these enhancements by collaborating with the Lawn Mower Manufacture’s Association of America (LMMAA) and using suggestions made by your largest customers. Now is the time to ask these people for testimonials that can be used in your press release.

Many of us recognize the stamp of approval or endorsement by an Association on a product to mean the product was designed, tested and approved using the Association’s stringent guidelines for production. The “Good Housekeeping” stamp of approval and “Utilities Laboratories” or UL, are commonly recognized on products that are made to a certain set of standards.

You could ask the President of the LMMA to talk about his experience working on the project and the care your company took in the new design and the enhancements. “The LMMAA thinks these enhancements to the XYZ Lawn Mower are the first of its kind. XYZ considered safety and cost at every point in the project. We are proud to have worked with them and couldn’t be more pleased with the end result.”

Perhaps you delivered the newest mower to your largest customer ACME mowers and they have used it for the past two months. The ACME owner sent you an email recently saying how wonderful the new mower was and they looked forward to doing business with you for the next 20 years. Call ACME and ask them if you can quote them in your news release.

These testimonials and quotes let the reader, viewer, or listener know that the story you are reporting is substantiated by outside parties. One or two testimonials or quotes are all you need to have a credible news release.

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Concept Marketing Group, Inc. is a full-service marketing consulting firm with over 29 years of experience in traditional marketing - including 13 years on the Internet. Concept Marketing Group Inc. assists in developing and implementing effective sales and marketing strategies for businesses through targeted, managed, strategic marketing campaigns. Visit our site, www.marketingsource.com, email us at concept@marketingsource.com or call 800-575-5369, for more information.