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In this issue:
• Marketing Article: Direct Marketing Tools: Top 10 At-a-Glance Glossary
• Marketing Article: EBooks - Promotional Powerhouses

Data Quality Critical as Postal Rates Increase May 14th

With the postal rate increase coming in May, businesses who run direct marketing campaigns will need to ensure that their data quality is at the highest delivery level. Data cleansing can prevent companies from wasting thousands of dollars on mail sent to undeliverable addresses. Sending mail to the correct address will:

• streamline direct marketing campaigns
• reduce undeliverable-as-addressed mail
• increase response rates

Maintain and clean your database! Clean your list today for only $2.50 for every 1,000 records, 24-hour turnaround, $75 minimum order.

Direct Marketing Tools: Top 10 At-a-Glance Glossary
by Accutips.com © 2007

What’s the difference between data hygiene and data consolidation? Are analytics the same thing as appends? This handy table of direct marketing terms and trends will give you easy access to the definitions you need.

1. Analytics: The process of measuring campaign response or examining customer data in order to achieve better direct marketing performance by improving response, reduce costs and minimize risks in future direct marketing programs.

2. Append/Reverse Append: Used to supplement an existing customer file with correct, permission-based email addresses or phone numbers. When a company possesses stand-alone phone or email records for its customers, they may also “reverse” the process and add physical data to those records. Improves business and consumer data, expands customer touch points and increases response rates.

3. Compiled List: Any list created from the compilation of public sources such as phone books, deed information, directories, newspapers and courthouse records. Updated frequently and usually ensures a wide array of prospects.

4. Data Consolidation and Standardization: A type of data hygiene that ensures addresses are standardized to meet the United States Postal Service requirements. The process includes validation and correction of street, city and state, along with many other cost- and time-saving standards. Helps improve mail deliverability, saving time and money by reducing postage and printing expenses for mailers.

5. Data Hygiene: A suite of “file-cleaning” solutions which helps businesses acquire exact and correct addresses and update their files with change of address records. Solutions include National Change of Address, deceased processing, and National Do-Not-Call processing which helps improve mail deliverability. Saving time and money and providing a better opportunity to capture more clients and improve retention of existing customers.

6. Data Integration: The process of consolidating and managing customer information from all available sources including contact details, customer valuation data, and information gathered through direct marketing interactions. Ensures that all relevant departments in the company have constant access to the most current and complete direct marketing data.

7. Managed List: A list compiled from limited sources like subscriptions or memberships. Controlled or managed often requiring pre-approval of campaign elements. Typically not updated frequently.

8. Merge/Purge: A data process that merges two or more lists or files, then purges the file of duplicates. Reduces postage and printing expenses for mailers.

9. Multi-channel Marketing: A program of offering customers more than one way to buy something: via the Web, direct mail and/or in retail stores. These programs could also include the use of partners, sometimes known as channels, who market directly to the customer as consultants, re-packagers, or retailers. Increases customer touch points. Elevates customer loyalty by allowing them to interact how they prefer. Can improve opportunities to collect customer data.

10. Multi-sourced List: A list comprised of many different sources, often meeting the highest quality standards. Some of the most reputable data providers will keep managed b-to-b lists of the major compiled commercial databases and consumer files including the major credit bureau databases. Offers the unique ability to identify and fill gaps found within individual data sources. Provides the most comprehensive coverage possible.

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AccuTips is a free monthly e-newsletter full of direct marketing news and legislation, strategies, how-to information, case studies, resources and more. For more information, visit www.accutips.com.

The Chamber of Commerce Directory is a comprehensive database of information on over 6,500 chambers located throughout the United States. Chambers are powerful resources for building, managing and expanding business opportunities for companies of all sizes. Our directory can assist your business expansion on a local, regional, and/or national level.

Order the Chamber of Commerce Directory today for only $125 for 1 year of unlimited online access. Go to www.marketingsource.com/chambers for more information or to order.

EBooks - Promotional Powerhouses
by William Yost © 2007

Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace. They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing information, ideas, techniques, and expert knowledge. Each day the number of people accessing the Internet grows, causing the exposure of your ebook to increase incrementally. It's obvious why electronic self-publishing has become so popular so quickly.

Having said that, let's look at what makes ebooks so important and so unique. Ebooks have certain abilities and qualities that other mediums do not possess.

For example, ebooks are fairly easy to produce, and their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about it: you don't need a publisher, an agent, a printing press, offset film, ink, paper, or even a distributor. You just need a great concept, the ability to write it or to hire a writer, and the right software.

Additionally, ebooks are easily and rapidly distributed online. They are also easily updated; they do not require a second print run. All you need is to go into your original creation and modify the text or graphics. Because of this flexibility, ebooks can change and grow as fast as you can type.

Ebooks are also immediately obtainable. You don't have to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download it from a website, and presto! It's on your computer, ready to be read.

Ebooks are interactive. This is one of the most unique and specific qualities that ebooks offer. You can add surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for customers to purchase your products or goods, sound and video that draw your reader into the virtual world of your ebook, even direct links to relevant sites that will expand your ebook outward. The potential is virtually limitless.

Ebooks have a particular kind of permanence that other mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. Ebooks remain on your computer for as long as your choose, and they can be read and reread whenever you choose to. They can even be printed out and stored on the shelves of your traditional home library.

Another wonderful quality is that ebooks have no barriers in terms of publishing. You don't need to go through the endless process of submitting your manuscript over and over again, and then once you land an agent, having the agent submit your manuscript over and over again. Nor do you have to shell out thousands of dollars for printing a self-published book. All ebooks require is a writer and appropriate software. Figure out your market, write your book, post it on your website, and with the right business savvy, your audience will come to you.

Finally, you have creative control over your ebook. You don?t have to compromise with an editor or the publishing trends of the time. You don't have to haggle with a designer or wait for copyedited galleys to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control of the design and the text.

How to Use ebooks for Marketing and Promotion

There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote your business and drive quality traffic to your website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them into a daily course, which brings your customer back to read the next chapter. You can use them as a free gift for making a purchase or for filling out a survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by inserting the disc into your sales packages.

The most effective marketing products are those that are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can offer to the public. People will have to visit your site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow of quality traffic and the potential of sales and affiliate contacts.

Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it frequently as the market and trends change. Add new advice and techniques to show your prospects how your goods or services can enrich their lives. By constantly keeping abreast of new trends and techniques, you can continue to see profits from your ebook for years after your original creation.

Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can test their marketing potential without putting out hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook one copy at a time, each time you receive an order, eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By this method, you can gauge the saleablity of your ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn about your market and customer habits and motivation over a period of time, without risking your precious financial resources. They also provide you with an invaluable way to gather marketing information, which you can use in many different facets of your business.

Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and problems are in your specific industry. Then figure out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook with this invaluable information. This will increase the value of your business, upgrade your reputation, and get you known as an expert in your field.

You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking the book down into chapters for a serial course, into special reports available on your website, or into audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into several different promotional materials by excepting some of the articles and using them to promote your product. You can include a catalog in your ebook to promote all the products or services you sell. You can include a thank-you note for reading your book and an invitation to download a trial version of your product. Or you can include a form for your audience to contact you for further information or with questions, thereby building your business relationships and your mailing list.

Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of individually producing separate promotional materials. You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and to sell new products to your current customers.

No other medium has this kind of flexibility and ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go and create that web, and see how many customers and prospects you can catch!

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The author is a software engineer seeking a 2nd income or to replace his income entirely by web marketing. He may be contacted at william_h_yost@yahoo.com. He has a site with marketing opportunities on it at http://you-seek-it.com/wizmarketer.