My wife received an irresistible offer in the mail the other day. So she didn’t resist.The publisher of a health newsletter offered her eight free reports in exchange for trying out the publication risk free. She could read the sample issue and, if she didn’t like it or want it, simply return it with the invoice. The free reports were hers to keep.My wife wanted the premiums but had little interest in receiving the newsletter. So she simply took the publisher up on his offer, received the free reports, wrote “cancel” on the invoice and returned it to the publisher as instructed. My wife is not a professional premium hunter and collector. But this offer was too attractive to pass up.You can avoid premium hunters by promoting your offer and not your premium, and by using a premium that is always of lower value than the merchandise being offered.Remember, your premium is the bribe that you offer your prospect for saying yes now. Your premium is not your offer. And because you should sell one thing in each direct mail piece, and only one, you need to sell your offer. And give your premium away.Your premium is the incentive to act, not the reason to act. In my wife’s case, the premium was more attractive than the product. So she became, for a moment at least, one of those infuriating people who responds to direct mail offers just to get the premium.The safest way to sell your offer and not your premium is to stress in copy and visuals what you are selling, and to make images of your premium, and copy about your premium, smaller than the surrounding images and copy.The next safest way is to make the premium a little hard to get. Insist on a minimum purchase quantity or a minimum purchase term. Require some commitment from your customers in exchange for the free gift and you’ll attract more product purchasers and fewer premium seekers.

When opening up a new business you might find that you are quite busy, but without the demand of constant customer it is still cost effective to take care of all of your mailing needs by yourself. After time and a fortunate pick up in business it might be harder to find the time to complete your direct mailing on your own. Since your business can not afford to not advertise your products or services, it is still quite vital for your company to send out your mailing to customers and potential customers. Without utilizing such services your business will not grow to its full potential. So how do you go about sending those much needed letters and advertisements out without spending time that you and your staff does not have on such a project?There is a simple solution to this dilemma; the answer is the use of direct mail printing services. Face the fact that it is a great thing to see your business grow, but that growth means that you have a lot fewer hours in the day to complete everything. When you use the direct mail printing services you are able to eliminate the need to find those few hours in the day that you can complete your mailing lists. Direct mail printing does everything for you. It doesn’t matter if you have a newsletter, postcard, magazine, self-mailers, or any other type of information that you wish mailed out. When you choose to use a direct mail printing service you no longer have to worry about having the documents printed and ready to be sent out. All you have to do is specify what it is you want done and a direct mail printing business will take care of all of the rest.Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to spend more time focused on running your business and making and profit and less time on marketing and advertising? That is exactly what you can expect when you turn over all of time consuming printing and mailing out to those who specialize in it. No more worrying about getting incentives, discounts, or newsletters out in the mail before a specific date, all you have to do is focus on your business while all of the work is done for you.If you have an idea of what you want to have printed for your business but are not quite sure about all of the specifics, direct mail printing is the perfect solution. When you enlist the services of direct mail printing you are having all of the designing, printing, and preparation of your mailing campaign taken care of for you. Especially with the prices that you have to pay for quality printing and mailing, such a service is beneficial for both time and cost reasons. With direct mail printing you are guaranteed to have quality prints sent out directly to all of your current and potential customers. Such a service saves you and your business time, money, and ensures that your marketing is being taken care of in a timely and professional manner.

Is your outbound mail failing to get the attention of your recipients? Are a significant percentage of them trashing the pieces without opening them?If you want to get a much higher “open” rate on your mail pieces, consider using Camel Mail.What is Camel Mail you ask? It is an envelope with something inside that creates a “hump”, resembling that strange looking desert animal. That’s called Camel Mail.Most people can’t resist opening a bulky package when it arrives. There’s something about that hump that attracts our attention. We just have to see what’s inside. So use the power of curiosity as a marketing tool.Your hump may be created by a promotional item that you want to give to your prospects. Maybe it’s an important article or story you think they will enjoy (to create the hump, send several of them folded into smaller pieces and let the recipient know you sent several copies for her to pass on to associates). Or perhaps it’s just a special offer or gift you want to get in front of your prospects and you present it nicely, and heavily, with decorative paper or bubble wrap.Whatever it takes, just make sure you create the hump. And the bigger the hump, the better.Of course the bulky item alone won’t be enough to move a prospect along in the sales process. Make sure you include a direct mail letter or personal note that highlights a specific benefit the prospect gets by doing business with you. If the item enclosed reinforces your message, that’s even better.

Dear Business Builder, I’m so old, I’ll betcha my tie has gone in and out of style at least five times. Not that I pay much attention to such things, mind you. My professional life revolves around marketing trends. And there again, my advanced age means I’ve seen many promotional styles go in and out of vogue over the years.Actually, the changes have been a bit more intense than that; more like the undulations you’d see watching a 350-pound belly dancer struggling to stay upright in a 7.3 earthquake.Take successful direct mail formats, for example … When I started out in this racket, just about everyone was using Monarch, #9 and #10 envelope packages. Then, suddenly, just about every financial control was mailed in a 6X9 window envelope. And just as suddenly, the magalog, bookalog and tabloid each took its place at the top of the format heap.Now, it’s not like all the big mailers got together and arbitrarily decided to switch formats (or if so, I sure as heck didn’t get the memo).In each case, each new direct mail format climbed to the top of the pile simply because it gave mailers a greater ROI than its predecessor.Some formats got greater attention, readership and response simply because they were new; different than the ho-hum junk mail our prospects had come to expect.Others, like bookalogs, appeared to have value – and therefore weren’t as susceptible to the indignity of being instantly and unceremoniously thrown, unread, into the nearest trash receptacle.And still others – magalogs and tabloids, for example – jumped to the head of the direct mail pack because they: 1) Offered marketers greater visibility in the mailbox … 2) Gave us more external real estate with which to “sell” prospects on reading them … AND 3) Appeared to be magazines, which, like books, are perceived to have value.So, whenever someone asks which direct mail format I’m likely to use, I know to stick my finger in the wind before I answer.But while many direct mail formats have come and gone throughout my career, the principles of creating effective sales copy pretty much stayed the same – and for one, simple reason:OUR PROSPECTS WEREN’T CHANGING MUCH In 1975 for example, the average 65-year-old prospect for financial and health products had been born in 1910. In ’85, I was talking primarily to folks who’d been born in 1920. In ’95, I knew my average prospect had been born in 1930.All of these folks had common cultural experiences and common values. They all had memories of the Great Depression in the ‘30s … World War II in the ‘40s … and of gathering around a flickering black-and-white television for Leave It To Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best in the ‘50s.Their world view was formed at a time when a man’s word was his bond and when good character meant everything.They were raised by their parents and conditioned by society and the media to revere the government … trust the friendly family doctor … respect the companies that employed them … believe what TV, radio, magazines and the newspaper told them … and also to assume most of the advertising they saw and heard was pretty much true.It was for these generations that Kennedy, Lasker, Hopkins, Collier, Schwab, Caples, Reeves and Ogilvy created their legendary ads.And it is from these generations the great advertising masters learned their lessons about what worked best before passing them on to us in their classic volumes.Now, that generation is being gradually replaced. The prospect who was 65 when I begin writing in the 1970s is 98 today. The 65-year-old who bought the rare coins I sold for Blanchard in the ‘80s is now 88.With each passing day, more members of that generation check out of our prospect groups. And also every day, more of their children and grandchildren check in.OH, WHAT A DIFFERENCE A SINGLE GENERATION CAN MAKE!Today’s 65-year-old prospect was born in 1942 – ‘way too young to remember World War II – let alone the Great Depression.More importantly, he turned 18 in 1960 and proceeded to acquire his skills as a financial decision-maker and consumer smack-dab in the middle of the “Don’t-Trust-Anyone-Over-30” and “Question-Authority” era of the 60s and early 70s. The era of Vietnam and Watergate produced the most skeptical and cynical generation America had seen.What’s more, that generation did an excellent job of passing its skepticism on to its children. Those hyper-cynical, ultra-skeptical “Generation Xers” are now your 26 to 47-year-old prospects.WE’RE GETTING MORE AND MORE CYNICAL While our older prospects are being continuously replaced by their far more skeptical children and grandchildren, two additional sea changes have been busy giving our prospects even greater reasons to distrust anything they see, hear or read in the media – including our ads …The first of these two developments began at our supermarket checkout counter – when copies of The National Enquirer made their appearance, packed with stories of alien encounters, Bigfoot and other such horsepucky.Soon, more publishers figured out they could get rich appealing to our baser instincts with stories of the lurid and bizarre, of gossip and scandals – and tons of “me-too” tabloids began springing up like crazy.Finally, the national media figured it out too – and most TV news programs and cable channels began spending less time covering news that matters.Instead, the U.S. media became obsessed with Joey Buttafuko, Lorena Bobbitt, Monica Lewinsky, Mary Kay Laterno, Anna Nicole Smith, the status of Britney Spears’ underwear – and of course, UFOs and Bigfoot.Now, I ask you: Can you imagine the venerable Walter Cronkite reporting on such things?Neither can our prospects. Is it any wonder that we’ve lost respect for the media and come to question the veracity of just about everything we read, see and hear today?And now, while the media we once trusted has been busy debauching itself, the Internet — a new and even less responsible medium — has taken center stage …Despite the spam filters my ISP uses and despite the spam-shooters we have on our own network, I’ll get between twenty and fifty unsolicited e-mails today, and most will be obvious rip-offs.As consumers, we also know that many websites can be equally hazardous to our financial health. Since you can pretty much say whatever you want on the ‘net – whether it’s true or not – many people do.And so, for anyone whose IQ is larger than their shoe size, any advertising claim on the ‘net is taken with a grain of salt.What does all of this mean to marketers and copywriters? And how does it affect direct marketing strategy?Well, for one thing … EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT ATTRACTING NEW CUSTOMERS AND WRITING TO EXISTING CUSTOMERS IS QUICKLY BECOMING OBSOLETEThe Masters — Kennedy, Lasker, Hopkins, Collier, Schwab, Caples, Reeves, Ogilvy and others – created their classic ads for a radically different audience than you’re addressing today.It’s time to stop merely asking, “What do the Masters say?” and to begin asking, “What would Hopkins, Caples, Ogilvy and the rest HAVE DONE if they had been presented with today’s hyper-skeptical market realities?”As a marketer, overcoming today’s pandemic of skepticism is your single greatest challenge.The good news is, it can be done. Because despite the fact that our prospects are radically different than their parents and grandparents, they do have one thing in common with them:They like to spend money. The desire to feather our own nests … to purchase products that can make us richer or healthier … to buy things that save us time, effort or money … to spend money on things that assuage our boredom or loneliness or improve our status … is every bit as powerful as it ever was.Nevertheless, if we are to enfranchise these new generations of ever-more skeptical prospects, the way in which we marketers deliver our “gospel” – the “good news” that our products can, indeed satisfy these desires – must change.Here at my agency, Response Ink, we see the effects this new skepticism is having on our response and ROI every day …>> One-shot customer acquisition promotions are going the way of the dinosaurs. Today, it’s all about the relationship between your company and your prospect … and building credibility and friendship over time.While marketers who deliver value, invite involvement and create a sense of community among prospects before expecting a sale are growing by leaps and bounds, those who cling to the old models are losing ground.>> Bombastic “big promise” or USP headlines are not working as well. Today’s prospect is more likely to ignore sales communications that look and sound like sales communications.Instead, topical, newsy and intrigue leads that key on something your prospect is already thinking about often work best.>> High-octane sales copy is losing its power. Today, lower-key, value-added advertising copy (advertorials) that reward prospects for reading by delivering valuable, helpful, actionable information is leaving the language of the high-energy carnival barker in the dust.IT’S ALL ABOUT PERSUASION Sleepwalking through the process of designing your direct marketing strategy – falling back on old-fashioned, even obsolete “in-your-face” marketing models – is easy.Formulaic copywriting – falling back on the old ways and just throwing around a bunch of big promises and high-energy words – is easy.Thinking is hard. Climbing inside your prospect’s skin …fully understanding what he must first know and feel before he’s likely to purchase your product … then presenting that information in a way that’s engaging, lively, entertaining and credible – and doing all that without having your sales copy sound like sales copy – is the hardest kind of hard.It’s worth it. A few weeks ago, I wrote a series of personal, warm, friendly, low-key e-mails inviting prospects to attend a free teleseminar on international investing.More than five thousand people signed up. The call delivered valuable, actionable advice to help investors profit in foreign stock markets that are jumping as much as 144% a year.This friendly, low-key phone call sold somewhere north of $1.5 million in subscriptions in a matter of hours.Meanwhile, we blasted a high-energy “obvious” USP-based promotion to prospects.It barely even registered on the response Richter scale. Worth thinking about…

If you want your direct mail piece to be one of the 66% that gets opened and read rather than the 44% that gets thrown away unopened, you’ll have to design a compelling outer envelope among many other things. It is hard to say, however, how much of the 66% just gets opened and thrown away with no response from the recipient.One of the most important parts of a direct mail envelope and letter set is that everything on the piece flows. If the outside of your envelope is compelling enough for the person to open it, you don’t want to disappoint them with a boring, white letter on the inside as this will lose their attention immediately. Here are some tips to making everything, and I mean everything! in your direct mail flow:1) Design your own stamp
While this may still be on the outside of the envelope, it is a special touch you can give the letter, or even postcard, to attract a potential customer’s attention. It will showcase your creativity and attention to detail, as most people aren’t even aware that designing your own postage stamp is a possibility!Using a live stamp in itself can greatly increase the percentage of opened letters, but having a personalized stamp says so much more. There are certain USPS approved design studios that can help you design your own stamp that you can then purchase for a little more than a regular stamp.2) Match the concepts on the envelope and inner letter
Make sure that you use both the inside and outside of the envelope to sell and make both compelling. WARNING… if you make false or irrelevant statements to get the recipient to go inside the envelope you loose all creditability and drive the prospect further consequently, you’ll never make a sale. Be honest from the beginning. Make sure you follow through on the inside with whatever you said on the outside.3) Graphics match outside and inside
Continuity is the key. The words need to match, and so do the graphics. There is nothing more disconcerting than a complete break between the envelope that first attracted you and the letter you see when you rip it open. Once again you loose your audience in confusion rather then reel them in.Several products can help you put together a super mailer. You can purchase little graphics like hand-drawn doodles (the product named Doodleopes is an example) to go on the outside of the envelope to draw people in and identical looking doodles to go on the inside. Not only do these help your direct mail flow, but they attract attention to the correct parts of the sales letter and make your company seem unique and creative!4) Name/logo reflective of product
This may seem obvious, but the same product name and logo need to go on every part of your direct mail from the envelope to the letter inside to any postcard you may send. Nothing will make you look more untrustworthy than a weird, disconnected name and logo.In fact, making your product’s name and logo reflective of the actual product is not just a direct mail campaign worry. It’s important the name and logo match to increase sales and ensure that the customer knows what they’re buying. A confused customer will lead to the direct mail being thrown straight in the garbage can.

When you are developing the marketing plan for your business, there are many factors you must take into consideration. Advertising is crucial, but needs to be done strategically in order to garner the best response for your money.Many online businesses rely upon e-mail advertising to accomplish the majority of their marketing goals. For the most part this is an easy and inexpensive way to advertise your product or to maintain contact with existing customers.There can be several flaws with e-mail or online marketing, the greatest one of which is ending up in the clients spam file. E-mail messages that are not very carefully worded will be jettisoned there without ever even seeing the inbox.Using the word “free” anywhere in your message is one guaranteed way to get you there. Most e-mail servers search for certain words or phrases that identify the e-mail as spam, and “free” is one of those very words.People nowadays are also so accustomed to receiving unsolicited e-mail advertisements that they hit the “delete” button with gleeful abandon, and many times accidentally condemn your message to the trash without ever even opening it.Print Ads Get the Customer’s AttentionIn the electronic age in which we live, your customers have adjusted to receiving the majority of their “junk mail” via the Internet. With the growth of electronic advertising, many businesses have cast away their direct mail efforts.Direct mail advertising is still very much so alive and well, though. In fact, there is a large percentage of the buying public who still prefer the more personalized feel of direct mail.Present your printed advertisement in such a way as to grab your customer’s attention. Use teaser print on the envelope or a catchy phrase on the face of the ad that will grab your prospect’s eye. Pique their curiosity and give them a reason to open the envelope.Advantages of Direct MailYou can do many things with direct mail that you cannot do with electronic advertising. Vivid images and eye-catching graphics help grab your prospect’s attention. You can include a sample of your product, or a free gift. If you sell products that are scented, such as perfume, candles, lotion, or bath products, you can include a “scratch and sniff.” Printed advertising allows you to engage more of your prospects’ senses, which in turn heightens their interest in your product.Your main disadvantage with direct mail marketing is that it does cost more than e-mail or Internet marketing. You must do your homework and know your prospect, and selectively advertise by using qualified lists. You may even already have your own list of customers and potential customers, built through your website.Direct mail marketing adds another whole dimension to your marketing efforts. It provides you with another avenue of catching their attention and garnering their interest in your product. You can engage senses that electronic marketing cannot. You can also track your marketing efforts to determine their effectiveness. Consider the advantages of printed advertising to add another dimension to your marketing efforts.

Selling products and/or services through the mail is a 100 billion dollar year industry, even with today’s high cost of postage and the low cost of internet marketing.Mail order selling appeals to many businesses because it generally­, it doesn’t require complicated equipment, a lot of start-up capital, or an expensive­ office. Mail order is a kind of busines­s that can be run by anyone from the comfort of his or her own home.About all that’s required for success in mail order selling is an understanding of your market and what they want to buy. With some effective sales copy and some good testing, you can quickly build a profitable business in a very short time.In order to make it big in Direct Mail, you must understand that it’s a selling business. Thus, you’ve got to decide on what you want to sell – who your buyers will be – and know why they buy and the, program your selling efforts in such a way that these people will buy from you.Here’s some steps to take to get started:1. Do some marketing research: Look in all the publications running mail order advertisements­ and opportunities – get a good understanding of why they are doing – how they are doing it – and then formulate­ a business plan of your own that will allow you to duplicate what they’re doing­.Your initial marketing research should give you a good idea of what is selling – what the people are buying – and which titles of any particular author you want to promote, and sell for your own profits.2. Next Look in Magazines: Find a publication that your market would be reading. Take a note of the ads they are placing in the publication. Are they running in each issue? If some ad run more than three times in a publication it’s good indication it’s making money.3. Find a List: Most magazines offer a list of their subscribers that you can purchase. If you find a publication that fits your market and has ads that are similar to yours then call a list broker and buy a sample of the list. Send out a test mailing and tract your results.The most important part of direct mail success is your market research. There is nothing worse then sending out a direct mail promotion that no one is interested in.

Postcards may not be the most popular marketing tool in our modern high-tech business world. That’s too bad because they can be a very cost-effective way to generate website traffic and sales leads …if you do it right.Here are 5 proven tips that will help you create powerful marketing postcards guaranteed to produce a big response.1. Make a Big First ImpressionPeople like getting postcards from friends and relatives. They don’t like getting advertising mail. Make your postcard look at first glance like a message from a friend instead of like an advertising announcement. It creates a warm friendly reception for your postcard.For example, use the same typestyle and layout you would use to send a postcard to a friend. Use a date at the top …even if it is something like “Monday, 11:15 AM”. And include a real “from” name at the bottom …even if it’s not handwritten.2. Get Right to the PointPostcards get delivered in a format that’s ready to read. Take advantage of this by making the biggest benefit you offer the first thing the reader sees. This will make them want to read the rest of your postcard.For example, state your biggest benefit as a headline at the top of your postcard …or make it the first item on a bulleted list of benefits …or highlight it in bold type if it’s in the body of your postcard.3. Sell the Right ThingMarketing postcards are most effective when they are used to generate website traffic or sales leads. They are less effective for closing sales because they don’t provide enough space for a detailed sales message.Design your message to sell the reader on seeking more information instead of trying to close sales.For example, don’t include much (if any) actual information about the product or service you are selling on your postcard. Instead, promote the major benefit (or benefits) they provide. Then persuade the reader to visit your website or to take some other action to get more information from a source where you can close sales.4. Be Clear and DirectYou have only a few seconds to get the reader’s attention and to persuade them to take the action you want. So keep your message brief and make sure the reader can clearly understand it with just a quick glance.For example, limit your postcard to just a few short sentences with blank lines between them. Reduce several sentences to a short bulleted list to save space and reading time.Always end your postcard by telling the reader exactly what to do to get more details – and include a reason to do it immediately.5. Stimulate Fast ActionJust telling your reader how to get more information is not enough. You have to give them a reason to respond NOW or many will put your postcard aside to do later …then get involved with other things and forget it.For example, offer them a discounted price, a special bonus or some other benefit if they reply to your postcard by a deadline.Postcards are not new or high-tech. But that’s not a reason to ignore them. They can generate a lot of website traffic and sales leads for a very low-cost.Follow these 5 proven tips and you will discover how to create powerful marketing postcards guaranteed to produce a big response.Copyright 2007 Bob Leduc

If you have been in business for any length of time or are even just starting for that matter, you would have heard of the advertising medium called direct mail. This medium of advertising has worked centuries and still continues to work if people know how to use it to their own benefit and advantage,. Anyone with an accurate knowledge of how to work or twist this advertising medium will consistently bank in the millions of dollars while his competition still continues to send out loser mails and ads that yield nest to nothing in profits. While this is not a course in direct mail advertising, you can be sure to learn one or two new tips and tricks that will increase your conversion rate and boost your sales dramatically.Never Underestimate the Power of FreeThis worked in the past, has always worked, is still working right now and will work in the future. The only thing is you don’t want to do with something that nobody thinks is worth it. So, give out free gifts, reports, white papers, samples and all other free things you feel would have high perceived value on your potential prospects. Look at it this way, when have you been able to refuse a free sample of a new D&G perfume? Get the idea; the brand and perceived value makes the customer actually listen to what you have to say and in most cases, they will do what you want them to.Your Copy has Got to be a killerListen, you get just one chance at this, one leg in the door, you either make or lose it. Pick your choice. If you copy is not that good, no one will even read its first 2 sentences. People have too much to read these days; besides they already have better sales letters than the crap you sent them. So, if you have to hire an excellent copy writer to do the gig for you, do so without second thoughts. If you have an in-house sales team capable of writing killer copies, ensure they write one or even two -for the purpose of split testing the results.Grab Their AttentionIf you fail at this, there is no remedy. Your headline has got to literally grab them by the throat and draw them in. Also, depending on the purpose of the ad, you might want to either make it long or short. This strictly depends on your marketing needs at the time. If you want a response and not sales, short copy is great. The faster you get to the point, the better. And never hesitate to give them the punch line. A firm call to action MUST be issued or included at the different critical points in the sales letter. Know one thing: if the prospect has reads that far as to see your call to action, then they are almost or already sold.

The right direct mailing list targets people who want your product or service.The wrong list fails to target people who would want to buy from you – and it is costly. In fact, this is what people refer to as ‘junk mail’. It is junk because it is mail that is not relevant to the people it is mailed to and does not take into account their buying habits.The direct mail mailing list is a key factor in a successful direct mail marketing campaign and a major point to consider in small business marketing strategies where marketing ROI (Return On Investment) is a key concern.What really makes your direct mail marketing and advertising campaign successful?The biggest single factor in the success of your direct mail marketing strategy is who you send your mailings to.You need a list.This can be a list of existing customers or prospects who have inquired as a result of any of your marketing efforts or a list which you purchase or in some cases obtain for free.The mailing list must contain the names of people who are likely to be interested in the benefits of your products or services.Don’t try and sell beer to the Temperance Society or real estate to people who cannot afford it. You have to target your direct mail marketing efforts.What kinds of lists are available?The four basic kinds of lists that you can use are (you can use all four):1. Your own list of prospects and customers. This is a list that you collected with your own personal marketing efforts. This is known as a house list. These people are most likely to respond to your offers, because they have responded in the past.2. A response list is a list of people that have actually done something. They have either purchased something from the people who put together the list or inquired in response to some offer or asked to be on the list. They have some level of interest in the topic or purpose of the list.These people have not previously responded to you, but they have responded to someone in a related area (if you have purchased a correctly targeted list) so you know they are at least warm. This is a direct mail mailing list you can purchase from the owner of the list (such as a magazine or company) or a list broker.3. A compiled list is a list of people who were selected to be on the list because they possess the characteristics that you asked the list broker to screen for.Examples of characteristics used to target correctly may include age, sex, geographic location, income level, etc. These are more fixed characteristics than response list characteristics, which are behavioral characteristics.Case study: California based Sun Pacific Mortgage’s Forest Tardibuono found a great way to get the right direct mail mailing list for his company which has a very successful direct mail marketing strategy based on postcards and direct mail mailing lists.“The title companies give us the mailing labels free. I’ll tell them we want all the homeowners in 95401 which is a zip we get most of our business from. So they’ll give us the mailing labels of anyone who is a homeowner from that lists. It saves money on labels and mailing lists. They’ll even limit searches to specific categories such as all homeowners from that zip that got a loan from certain companies and they’ll do the search according to that so I can really target the public so that the mailing will be more effective.”Mailing lists, correctly targeted, can make the difference in a mediocre promotional campaign to a wildly successful promotional campaign. It really just depends on what you are willing to have – success or mediocrity. So which is it?Direct Mail and Do-Not-Mail BillsAs I have just said, the road to success with direct mail is careful selection of one’s mailing list. With that in mind ‘junk mail’ would virtually fall by the wayside. The recent Do-Not-Mail bills attempting to thwart businesses and direct mailers from reaching out to potential customers is the main reason why targeted lists are so vital in the fight to cut out junk mail.Ten states have recently introduced Do-Not-Mail bills in their state legislatures indicating that consumers are fed up with junk mail. If these bills are passed, a company wanting to send un-requested mail to consumers would need to buy an updated copy of the state’s Do-Not-Mail list and check it against their own mailing lists – adding unwanted workload to businesses that will curtail productivity in response to government red tape.This in turn will have a severe negative impact on a state’s economic development as it will be a nightmare to the small business owner, who already is fighting government red tape, payroll taxes and the like – not to mention trying to run a company in the black while keeping his staff productive and customers happy.Junk mail is mail that is not directed to a specifically targeted mailing list. Consumers do not mind receiving mail promoting products and services they need – that is ‘direct mail’…there is a difference.When unsolicited direct mail (junk mail) overpowers targeted direct mail consumers begin to complain.Which brings me to the fourth kind of list…4. A highly exacting segmented list based on hi-tech systems analysis that can define key prospects for a business for purposes of hitting the mark in marketing. This precise technology, which in the past was saved only for large corporations but is now available to the small business owner, finally gives businesses and entrepreneurs the ability to micro-target their market for extreme results.One can access very specific information about any company’s consumer client base with information that goes way beyond the standard criteria of age, income and gender used in list purchasing.Imagine if a customer base can be broken down into 70 different segments and upon doing so, one learns that 30% fall into one segment, 20% into another and the other 50% is spread across the remaining 68 segments. Why mail to the micro percentages that fall into the other 68 when one can hit the 50% most likely to purchase?One can learn the spending and saving habits of one’s customers along with details like what they enjoy reading and where they like to travel. Then an analysis is done with all that info and the geo-demographics of that client base so that one can really find his/her exact market and promote only to them.Using technology like this increases response and ROI .Targeted mail lists are key in handling problems such as Do-Not-Mail bills. Bills such as these are only arbitrary solutions which will only become a bigger problem down the road.Studies show that 70 percent of the US population prefers direct mail to email or phone calls. However, in order for it to be ‘direct mail’ it must ‘direct’ its message to people whom it is relevant and their purchasing habits.The moral of the story is: Don’t stop marketing because the government threatens to cut your lifeline (communication to your potential prospects). Market! But get a list – a targeted list. And have success.