Monday, 9 April 2012

Reaching Millions With Consumer and Business Mailing Lists

Consumer and business mailing lists is a proven and efficient way to market that has existed for decades.  With this approach to marketing, millions of potential buyers can be reachable with a few simple considerations.

Direct Marketing with consumer and business mailing lists has been around for many decades.  The term Direct Marketing first appeared in 1967 when Lester Wunderman identified, named, and defined it, but the concepts were pioneered in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward when he produced the first mail-order catalogue for his Montgomery Ward mail order business.  Since then, many businesses and individuals have used catalogues and mail to reach prospective buyers of products and services.

One of the most efficient ways to take advantage of Direct Marketing is through the United States Postal system and consumer or business mailing lists.  Through this system, anyone with a delivery address can be reached with an offer to buy a product or service.  This method of marketing has been a proven and effective way to sell.

The most important aspect of using this method of marketing is to get a quality mailing list from a reputable supplier.  It is also prudent to do a test mailing of at least 500 leads to verify the quality of any list you buy.  Any quality list will have a low percentage of returned mailings (undeliverable) and result in verifiable responses from those contacted.  Any list that has neither will not be a quality list.  Further, any list that fails to get you responses should be avoided as well.  After all, there is a degree of faith involved in trusting an unknown company and what they are delivering to you.  As far as you know, they could simply be names and addresses from phone books and not targeted at all.

Assuming that you do have a reputable list provider with quality names that match your target audience, you will find that direct mail marketing through consumer or business mailing lists is a good and effective way to market a product or service.   It is especially productive for small to middle sized businesses who want to give a personalized approach to their marketing campaign.

Wednesday, 4 April 2012

Marketing Materials: The Advantage of Paper Marketing Materials

Most people consider visual media superior to physical media for marketing, but that is not the case.  Paper has a place even in today's marketing when delivered with effective direct mail marketing Campaign using consumer and business mailing lists.  Here is why it can more than compete with visual and audio marketing.

The Internet and visual media has blinded people on the value of paper as a marketing medium.  That's a shame because paper marketing material can be used to greater effectiveness than visual media can if you're smart enough to use it wisely.  People like to feel and touch things as well as have their visual senses dazzled, and only paper media can do both.

As a point of proof of this concept, all you have to do is to go into any department store and watch people carefully.  Almost everyone, consciously and unconsciously, will touch products on the shelves. 
Sometimes the touching serves an informative service to the prospective buyer, allowing them to view information on the product or get better views of it. Sometimes the touching is used to judge the product to get some perspective on it.  Is it heavy and durable, made of lightweight plastic, and does it seem sturdy or fragile?  And sometimes, the touching is done only because the prospective buyer likes to have tactile feedback on the products they are interested in, as it touching them gives them a more personal attachment to it.

These same factors apply to marketing materials, and through consumer mailing lists and direct mail marketing, they can be delivered to prospective buyers, something visual media can't do.  There are several ways to accomplish this.  All of them require a spark of creativity and understanding of the human psyche when it comes to receiving gifts.

We all love to get stuff, especially when it's free and creative. Things that make us smile, or engage us are more likely to stick in our minds and hearts.  The best direct mail marketing campaigns take advantage of this by including special gifts that send a message. 

Things like expanding three dimensional objects from two dimensional ones that pop-up when opened, simple easy to fold origami patterns with marketing info on them that will sit on a person's desk for week, and foldable colored paper airplanes that can be played with around an office.  All things that send a message, stay around for awhile, and win the hearts of your prospective buyers.

So paper marketing has its points over other visual or audio media, they just have to be utilized properly.  And the best way to deliver these special, tactile messages that aren't fleeting is to use consumer and business mailing lists through direct mail marketing.