In Thursday’s post, we talked about purchasing a highly targeted list in order to market to top prospects for your business. Unfortunately, a list of this kind can often be very expensive, which will often discourage entrepreneurs from investing in them.

One way to overcome the cost problem if you own a small, local business is to make contact with the owners of similar businesses in other geographic areas and go together as a group on a list rental project.

Basic lists without a lot of merge/purge work can be rented for as low as $30-35.00 per thousand names. That fee is for one time use only and that’s important.

Most lists include some ’seeds’. These are people who are listed there and are paid to report on the mail they receive. Their name may be on a list in a certain way so that any mail they get addressed that way indicates that the list was used.

Copying and using rented lists more than once is dangerous. You can be prosecuted, fined, even imprisoned.

Lists are available in many different formats – computer printouts, self-adhesive labels, but the most common is to have the list sent to you in a computerized database program.

If you test more than one list with the same promotion you’ll want to code your mailings and track the response so you can make better list selection decisions in the future.

You can code by creating fictitious suite numbers or telephone extension numbers, inserting different colored coupons correlated to different lists or assigning code numbers that must be given to obtain the discount or the gift offered.

For a small extra charge your code can be imprinted right on the mailing label too. This is particularly useful if you are using a window envelope with the label on the inside piece that will later be redeemed as a coupon.

If you’re renting from a large database to do a test you can and should get an nth name sort. Say you’re renting 5,000 names from a list of 25,000. You might then get every fifth name. Then if the promotion is successful you can rent the remainder of the list less those you’ve already mailed to.

In other words omitting every fifth name.

If you are using mailing lists only for one local area you may want to talk with the mailing list sources listed in your own local yellow pages. It may be more convenient for you to deal with a local supplier. You may feel more comfortable meeting with someone face-to-face.

However, if the local source cannot give you exactly what you want one of the big national houses certainly can.

Let’s run through one more example – American List Counsel has a list of high income residents at their home addresses. The list has been compiled from census information, phone books, car registrations, and other sources.

There are over eleven million people in the $75,000-100,000 income range. We can select by state, length of residency and get phone numbers.

If I were running a redecorating company I might be interested in this list. I’d want those in my state in that high income range who had been in the same home for five or more years and I would want their phone numbers for phone follow-up to my mailing.

If I were going to try and merge/purge that with something I might try subscribers to Architectural Digest or House Beautiful and Gardens magazine and take only those names who subscribed to at least one of them.

Obviously the smaller your business’ market area the more difficult it is to cost-effectively access and use these national databases but it can be done.

If you want to get a real competitive advantage and be able to target market to highly qualified prospects Standard Rate and Data Service is the place to begin.

Author Info:  Dan Kennedy is internationally recognized as the 'Millionaire Maker,' helping people in just about every category of business turn their ideas into fortunes. Dan's "No B.S." approach is refreshing amidst a world of small business marketing hype and enriches those who act on his advice.