Marketing List Resources

Below you will find some marketing list resources and articles to help in your selection process. We add new content and information on a regular basis so be sure to visit often. If you have additional questions regarding direct marketing lists visit our help section or contact us directly for further assistance.

1. Choosing the Right Marketing Lists for Your Business

US marketing guru Philip Kotler once said that "marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master."

Kotler may have been right, but he probably said that at a time when people had not yet grasped the impact of the information highway. The Internet has given rise to a new marketing universe - that of online marketing - and we're suddenly intrigued by buzz words like viral marketing and customer relations management and social networking - concepts that are supposed to be healthy for your business. Would't you want your business to benefit from this new thinking?

You would, of course, but before you can even begin to strategize along those lines, you need tools like marketing lists.

But which marketing list do you choose so that it complements your marketing goals?

Take these "baby" steps in choosing the right marketing list:

1.  Be clear about your marketing goals and your desired outcomes. Starting a marketing campaign without clearly defined objectives is like steering a ship in total darkness.

2.  Who is your target audience? Are you going to market to a particular demographic? For instance, if your company sells real estate services, what types of customers should you target? Who will most likely buy your higher-end services? What salary bracket are they in? Do they subscribe to real estate magazines? Are they mostly young, upward, and mobile university graduates or retirees looking to invest?

3.  Decide what specific marketing strategy you're going to use. Are you going to do a direct mail campaign or will you use email marketing? Is a telemarketing approach more appropriate for your type of business?

4.  Once you've defined (1), (2), and (3) above, do your due diligence before you buy. Be careful about buying lists that were obtained through questionable methods. This means the marketing list you're considering must (a) target your audience, (b) contain only the names and addresses of people who provided that information willingly and (c) be comprehensive and regularly updated.

5.  If available, read any reviews or testimonials from people who purchased the same list. Did they get above average response rates? Were the contact details accurate and valid?

Because of market segmentation, marketing lists have become specialized and more industry-focused. For example, if you're starting a store that will cater to ethnic communities in your geographical location, you can find marketing lists that cater to ethnic customers, sharing the same consumer preferences and buying patterns.

2. Picking the Right Number of Leads You Need

Even large businesses have marketing budgets that limit the amount of money they can spend on attracting and retaining customers. The saying, "you've got to spend money to make money" can lead us into thinking that if sky's the limit, profits should grow exponentially.

Not quite.

There's still much to be said about spending marketing dollars the smart way because companies, regardless of size, can only spend so much on their marketing efforts. Pharmaceutical and health-care companies, for instance, must allocate a significant amount of their budget to research and development and to scientific training for their staff in order to remain competitive. That means spending more on R&D rather than on marketing.

So how do you pick the right number of leads without "breaking the bank?"

Let's look at an example: Your company sells lawn fertilizer and lawn-mowing services. You have a marketing list of residential customers who have been pre-qualified as potential buyers of your services. If there are 7,500 names on that list and your budget for door-to-door flyers or door hangers isn't enough to cover all 7,500 names, you'll need to pick the right number of leads that will generate the highest response rate.

How do you do that?

First, you can narrow your parameters. By this we mean, adding a criteria to filter the list. Some criteria can be:

      (a) selecting two or three zip codes within a given district for a test run

      (b) narrowing your selection of homes based on property value

      (c) using household income as a priority

Second, if you don't want to be too focused on criteria, you simply ask for fewer leads. In fact, by reducing the number of leads you want, your marketing campaign takes the smart approach of quality over quantity.

There are many ways you can pick the right number of leads that will generate the desired results, even when your budget restricts your marketing efforts.

Electronic versions of marketing lists, such as the ones offered by InfoUSA featured here on our web site, will make the selection of leads that are better suited to your budget by allowing you to weed out low-quality or irrelevant leads.

3. Deciding on the Most Effective Budget for Your Marketing Campaign List

Did you know that setting a budget is considered a marketing technique?

Why? Because once the decision is made that X amount of dollars will be spent on the marketing campaign, that decision determines what goes into the marketing campaign - the principal components that will help achieve the company's marketing objectives. But in order for the budget to be used effectively, in terms of the marketing campaign list, these marketing objectives must be as specific as possible.

Marketing objectives cover sales volume, market share, profit and product. As general as these concepts are, it is up to you to adapt these concepts to your business.

Here are some examples to guide you:

Sales volume - "we want to double our sales volume for the fourth quarter this year. Therefore, we should sell $35,000 more than last quarter's sales of $17,500.00."

Market share - "to increase our market share for our shampoo product by 12% over the next six months, that means we have to increase our customer base by 5,000 (or taking away 5,000 customers from our competitors)."

Profit - "our profits should increase by 10% in the next 12 months; that is, making a profit of $5,000 more over last year's profits of $50,000.00."

Product - "we should change the product package to a more colorful one so that it appeals more to the 18-30 age group."

The next step is to decide how much it's going to cost to achieve those objectives based on the company's priority. If capturing market share is priority # 1, what strategies should be employed to outsmart the competition - what is our unique selling point (USP) versus their unique selling point?

Once a cost analysis is completed, the marketing campaign list should either be purchased or developed in-house. Most companies are not really equipped to develop their own marketing list so they have the option to purchase or rent marketing lists.

Keith J. Tuckwell (Canadian Marketing in Action, Prentice Hall, 2002) says "managers responsible for product planning must develop and justify a budget that allows enough funds to implement the strategies identified in their marketing plan and to achieve the financial objectives identified for the product. The final stage of the budgeting process is the allocation of funds among the activity areas in the plan (e.g. product development, event marketing, direct marketing, etc)."

What it comes down to is: think creatively. Make the budget satisfy the cost of the marketing campaign list or, even better, manipulate the list so that it meets budget. Whichever way you choose hinges largely on the clear-cut definition of goals and objectives.