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In this issue:
Marketing Article: Lucky Lists: Secrets Of Finding And Using Magical Mailing Lists For Your Direct Marketing.
Marketing Article: The Four Seasons of Publicity - Building an All-Year Publicity Machine

Directory of Associatoins

The Directory of Associations is a comprehensive source of information on professional, business, and trade associations, 501c non-profit organizations, chambers of commerce, and other charity and community institutions.

Businesses of all types can benefit from the powerful niche market of associations and non-profit organizations.

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The list used to address your mailing is by far your single most important consideration. Why? Because a poorly conceived marketing message will pull more response from a good list, than a well-conceived message will from a bad one.

Thankfully, the worst that can happen to you in direct mail is that you’ll lose money. Considering life’s grand scheme—with illness, car wrecks or the occasional rotten bottle of wine—that’s not so bad.

But still, it stinks. After all, you’re in the mail to make a profit, right? At least you should be. If you don’t make money, you won’t be in the mail again. Profit is why you are in business. Any arguments?

You can make lots of mistakes in direct mail. You can create a terrible mailing package that no one will open. You can set your price too high, or too low and people won’t buy. You can offer your products at the wrong time.

Nothing, however, is as bad as mailing to the wrong list. Poor list selection is the worst goof you can make in direct mail. It’s Chevy hubcaps to Buick owners. Radios to the deaf. Bottle caps to a tuna factory.

The #1 Secret of List Selection Success
Direct marketing can be dynamite. Why? Because no other marketing channel offers you the ability to focus your message so precisely on an audience that is interested in your product or service.

But direct marketing success eludes many small businesses because they fail to grasp the purpose and value of the one key thing that can make or break their marketing program—the mailing list.

The list used to address your mailing is by far your single most important consideration. Why? Because a poorly conceived marketing message will pull more response from a good list, than a well-conceived message will from a bad one.

The best of all worlds is a well-conceived message presented to a highly targeted list of people with demonstrated interest in both the offer and the channel used to present it—direct mail.

Expanding Your Horizons
Most entrepreneurs first encounter mailing lists when talking with a local ad agency, printer or lettershop about an initial direct mail effort. Such sources of list information are usually quite limited, since mailing lists are not a major line of business for any of these suppliers. These vendors are most likely to steer you to what the list industry calls “compiled lists.”

A compiled list is any mailing list assembled from a public source—telephone directories, court records, surveys or any other publicly available source of names, addresses, phone numbers or other contact details. There are about a half dozen large companies that compile, maintain and sell such addressing data on a nationwide basis, and they are often the source of the lists you’d acquire from a local partner. There are also dozens of smaller, regional companies that offer compilations covering parts of the country or perhaps specific industries.

Response Lists Stand Tall
What many small business owners don’t know is that there’s another kind of mailing list that can, in many instances, increase response of the same mailing piece by four to ten times. They are called response-generated lists.

A response-generated list is vastly different from a compiled list. That’s because it’s actually another direct marketer’s customer or buyer list. In other words, it’s a list that has already proven successful for somebody. Every name on it has already demonstrated a responsiveness to some kind of direct marketing effort.

And this demonstration of responsiveness is golden. It’s the key to understanding the great power of using the right list. People on response-generated lists have raised their hand and said, “I need or want this product or service, and I’d like to acquire it by mail order.” Talk about demonstrated interest! Response-generated lists deliver prospects who’ve clearly indicated their buying interest and have shown a preference for the very channel you want to use—direct mail itself. There are tens of thousands of commercially-available, response- generated mailing lists, including:

* Magazine subscribers
* Catalog/mail order buyers
* Cause contributors
* Trade or professional association members

Almost every conceivable human interest or need is represented among this great class of mailing lists. Find a reputable data company to help you find the ones that might be right for you. If you’re using only compiled lists in your marketing program now, you should test a response-generated list in your next mailing.

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Jeffrey Dobkin, the author of the books "How To Market A Product For Under $500!" and "Uncommon Marketing Techniques," is a specialist in direct response copywriting. He analyzes and tunes-up clients' letters; writes powerful, response-driven sales letters, TV commercials and scripts; crafts persuasive catalog copy; and creates exceptionally hard-hitting direct mail packages. He also analyzes direct marketing packages, ads, catalogs, and campaigns. Mr. Dobkin is an acclaimed fun and funny speaker and a direct marketing consultant. Call him directly at 610-642-1000 or visit www.jeffreydobkin.com for free samples of his work. Or fax your letter to (610-642-6832) for a free evaluation.

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If you’re like most publicity seekers, you probably think one project at a time. You’ve got a new product coming out in April, so you send out a release in March. You’ve hired a new executive, you’ll put out a release when she’s on board, etc.

For hard-core publicity insiders, though, there’s a rhythm to generating coverage, based upon the natural ebb and flow of the seasons. Such an approach can help you score publicity throughout the year, and will help keep your eye on the ball from January through December.

Essentially, a yearlong approach consists of two strategies:

• Timing your existing stories (new product introductions, oddball promotions, business page features, etc.) to fit the needs of the media during particular times of the year.

• Crafting new stories to take advantage of events, holidays and seasonal activities.

Before we run through the four seasons of publicity, a few words about lead time. In this age of immediacy (only a few seconds separate a Matt Drudge or a CNN from writing a story and putting it before millions), it’s easy to forget that, for many print publications and TV shows, it can be weeks -- and sometimes months -- before a completed story sees the light of day.

The phrase lead time simply refers to the amount of time needed for a journalist to complete a story for a particular issue of a magazine or episode of a TV news program. For example, a freelancer for an entertainment magazine may need to turn in a story on Christmas movies by September 15. That’s a lead time of three months, time needed for the editor to review and change the piece, the issue to be typeset and printed and distributors to place the issues on newsstands before December. Lead time can range from a day (for hard news pieces in newspapers) to a few days (newspaper features) to a few weeks (weekly magazines) to many months.

The longest leads are the domain of "women’s books" like Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens. These publications often have a lead time of up to six months, which means they need information for their Christmas issues as early as May!

Here’s a tip to help you discover the lead time of a particular publication you’re targeting: call the advertising department of the publication and request a media kit. Since advertisers need to know when their ads must be submitted, each issue’s lead time is clearly stated in the media kit.

Factor the lead time into your planning as you look over the following sections. If you have a great story idea for Rolling Stone’s summer issues, you need to be on the ball well before Memorial Day.

The Four Seasons of Publicity:

First Quarter: January - March

What the Media’s Covering: Early in the year, the media is looking ahead. It’s a great time to pitch trend stories, marketplace predictions, previews of things to expect in the year ahead, etc. If a new President is being inaugurated, you’ll see lots of "Will the new administration be good for the (textile/film/cattle ranching/Internet/...or any other) industry?" types of pieces. This is a good time to have something provocative, or even controversial, to say about your industry.

The media also likes this time of year to run "get your personal house in order"sorts of pieces. Tax planning, home organizing, weight loss, etc. Anything that’s geared toward helping people keep their New Year’s resolutions can work here.

Key Dates and Events: Can you come up with a story angle to tie your business into an event that typically generates lots of coverage? Put on your thinking cap -- I bet you can! Here are some key events during the First Quarter: Super Bowl, NCAA Tournament, Easter, The Academy Awards.

Second Quarter: April - June

What the Media’s Covering: An "anything goes" time of year. With no major holidays or huge events, April is a good time to try some of your general stories (business features, new product stuff, etc.) Light, fun stories work here, as a sense of "spring fever" takes hold of newsrooms (journalists are human, you know. They’re just as happy winter is over as you are and it’s often reflected in the kind of stories they choose to run.). As May rolls around, thoughts turn to summer. Now they’re looking for summer vacation pieces, outdoor toys and gadgets, stories about safety (whether automotive or recreational), leisure activities, things to do for kids and so on.

Key Dates and Events: Baseball opening day, tax day (April 15), spring gardening season, Memorial Day, end of school, summer vacation.

Third Quarter: July - September

What the Media’s Covering: The dog days of summer are when smart publicity seekers really make hay. Folks at PR firms are on vacation, marketing budgets are being conserved for the holidays and reporters are suddenly accessible and open to all sorts of things. Get to work here, with creative, fun angles. Entertainment-themed pieces do well in the summer, anything with celebrities works, lighter business stories, new products, trend pieces, technology news, back to school education-themed articles, you name it. Reporters are about to get deluged once again come September, so use this window of opportunity wisely.

Key Dates and Events: July 4th, summer movies, summer travel, back to school.

Fourth Quarter: October - December

What the Media’s Covering: The busiest time of the media calendar, the Fourth Quarter is when the business media turns serious and the lifestyle media thinks Holidays, Holidays, Holidays. Business angles need to be hard news. Fluffy trend pieces won’t cut it, as business editors begin to take stock of the state of the economy and the market. It’s a tough time to put out a new product release. For the non-business media, think Christmas. Christmas travel, Christmas gifts, Christmas cooking, whatever. If you have a product or service that can be given as a holiday gift, get on the stick early.

Nail down lead times for the publications you’re targeting, call to find out who’s handling the holiday gift review article and get your product in the right person’s hands in plenty of time -- along with a pitch letter or release that makes a strong case about how what a novel, unusual or essential gift your product makes. After Christmas, you have a brief window for "Best of the Year", ""Worst of the Year" and "Year in Review" pieces. Be creative -- the media loves these things.

Key Dates and Events: Labor Day, World Series, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s Eve.

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Bill Stoller, the "Publicity Insider", has spent two decades as one of America's top publicists. Now, through his website, eZine and subscription newsletter, Free Publicity: The Newsletter for PR-Hungry Businesses http://www.PublicityInsider.com/freepub.asp , he's sharing -- for the very first time -- his secrets of scoring big publicity. For free articles, killer publicity tips and much, much more, visit Bill's exclusive new site: http://www.publicityInsider.com