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In this issue:
Marketing Article: High Response Marketing With Low-Cost Postcards
Marketing Article: America is Changing the Way it Hires

Holiday postcards are a great way to thank customers, bring in holiday sales, and remind customers of your products.

Last week to order your holiday postcards with free text design tailored to your business or offer. See our website for more details: www.marketingsource.com/printing/holiday.html

Postcards can drive a huge amount of traffic to your web site, generate a flood of new sales leads or produce a surge in any business activity you want. And you don't have to spend a lot of time or money on them ...if you apply these four little-known postcard marketing secrets.

Postcard Marketing Secret #1: Keep Your Message Very Brief

Don't try to close sales with postcards. You don't have enough space to provide all the information needed to close sales.

Instead, briefly state the major benefit(s) you offer to attract the reader's attention. Then focus on motivating them to get more detailed information from a source where you can close sales. For example, send them to your web site or give them a phone number to call.

Postcard Marketing Secret #2: Design Your Postcard To Look Like A Message From A Friend.

Most postcards I see look like an ad in a magazine. But when a postcard looks like advertising, people react to it as advertising. They don't pay much attention to it.

Instead, set up your postcard to look like a brief personal message from a friend. This attracts attention and lures prospects into reading your postcard ...even though they realize it is advertising. It generates a lot more replies than postcards that look like an ad.

Postcard Marketing Secret #3: Don't Spend a Lot on Printing

Postcards that look like a personal message can be very inexpensive to print. For example, here are 2 ways you can do the job on any computer with a printer:

* Print postcards on plain (no printed lines) 4 x 6 inch index cards. Cost: about 1.5 cents per card.

* Print 4 postcards at a time on 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets of standard index card stock. Then cut the sheets into quarters. Each postcard will be 4 1/4 inches high by 5 1/2 inches wide. Cost: about 1 cent per card.

Tip: In the US you can send postcards by First Class Mail for 23 cents if you make them at least 3 1/2 inches high by 5 inches wide but not over 4 1/4 inches high by 6 inches wide.

Postcard Marketing Secret #4: Don't Underestimate the Importance of Your Mailing List

You can generate a high percentage of replies by sending your postcards to prospects likely to be interested in your offer AND who have a proven record of taking action on offers that interest them.

This is why postcards produce a big response when you send them to your existing customers. But how can you find new prospects with these same 2 characteristics? Here are 2 ways:

1. Rent the customer lists of companies that are not your competitors, but who sell their products or services to the same targeted market.

2. Rent the paid subscriber lists of magazines and newsletters read by prospects in your targeted market.

You can get both lists through most mailing list brokers.

The next time you want to generate a flood of traffic to your web site or a flood of new sales leads ...send postcards. Apply these four little-known postcard marketing secrets and you'll produce a big response without spending a lot of time or money.

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Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses like yours find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards ...and launched *BizTips from Bob*, a newsletter to help small businesses grow and prosper. You'll find his low-cost marketing methods at: http://BobLeduc.com or call: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV.

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College and university students today are among the vanguard of the next generation of America’s workers.

Not only must they master the theoretical and practical knowledge needed for their chosen careers, but they must also prove to potential employers that they don’t have personal histories that will cause on-the-job problems or potential lawsuits.

These tougher standards are already showing up in required background checks for students planning jobs in the health care industry. Those working with or planning to work with patients in hospitals or homes are mandated by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) to undergo background checks to see if they have a history of potentially harmful criminal behavior.

Hundreds of institutions of higher learning have already taken the lead by establishing a relationship with MyBackgroundCheck.com (MBC), the leading company in applicant-paid pre-employment screening.

Concept Marketing Group, Inc. has already formed an alliance with MBC whereby visitors to Concept’s www.marketingsource.com Web site can click on any information item and, then, click on Employment Resources to access group rate Background Checks.

Traditionally, companies conducted their own screenings as part of the interview and hiring process. They usually checked work and personal references, but seldom looked beyond that.

In recent years, however, liability issues and other factors have increasingly resulted in businesses and educational institutions turning to independent companies to research criminal, credit, job, and educational histories.

Robert Mather, founder of MyBackgroundCheck.com and its sister company, Pre-employ.com, has seen the desire for applicant screening skyrocket, as employers, volunteer organizations, landlords, and schools realize that workplace violence, sexual harassment, and theft can be cut sharply by making informed hiring decisions.

“Basic background checks reveal that approximately 10 percent of job applicants have criminal convictions within the past seven years,” Mather said, “and it’s a fact that more than half of those people will re-offend.

“Furthermore, employers must be extremely vigilant when it comes to certain categories of offenders, such as rapists and child molesters. Not only is the recidivism rate extremely high for those criminals, but employers who fail to adequately investigate such applicants, especially those who will work with the young, elderly, or disabled, are increasingly susceptible to expensive lawsuits.”

The push for pre-employment screening, however, doesn’t stop with front-line workers who have frequent contact with the general public, Mather said. “Recent financial scandals in the corporate world have also shown the need for intensive checks of high-level corporate executives, particularly those with financial or data oversight responsibilities.”

Mather said that not only should job applicants in nearly all fields expect to be put under the microscope, they should be pro-active in knowing exactly what a pre-employment screening will show.

“MyBackgroundCheck.com allows individuals to run a search on themselves to make sure the information is accurate,” Mather said. “The results are posted on a secure web site that can only be accessed through a code that can then be released to an unlimited number of potential employers.

“Not only does this ensure security and privacy, but it makes employers sit up and take notice that you are thinking a step ahead of the rest of the field.”

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To directly access the group background check rates, visit www.marketingsource.com/employment/.