The Teckki Says

I recently resurrected a postcard campaign and prospected for the names personally. I gathered about two hundred or so names and addresses from various sources. I also checked the websites of these businesses to verify contacts and addresses. I pondered whether it was worth it, spending hours on this when the process of sending out a postcard, and possibly having it returned cost less than a dollar a name.

In that same week, I did a presentation on email marketing. I wasn't really sure that I wasn't putting this group to sleep until I mentioned that you cannot just put someone on a email list without explicitly asking for permission to do so, even if you know the person. Wow, did that get their attention! A very lively discussion ensued, because this had been done by several in the audience. We've all gotten email addresses from customers, business cards at an event, or from inquiries to our websites. From my understanding of the CAN-SPAM act, the federal law governing advertising to someone's email, you have to ask everyone you intend to market to via email. What this actually meant was why the discussion was so lively.

Both of these stories involved lists, marketing lists in particular, but there's more.

I got a call from my hosting provider regarding this very domain, betterwebdesignandgraphics.com, about driving more traffic to the site. His intention was to sell Search Engine Marketing. I turned him down for a couple of reasons.

First, I market the blog primarily through email marketing, which is how many of you get to this blog. Second, the blog has been submitted to the search engines, and it has been successful. So successful, in fact, that I get many comments from visitors. I also get a lot of spam, which shows up as email alerts waiting for me to approve posting. I have a policy that does not allow for postings to occur automatically. This policy keeps the value of the blog high in your eyes, allowing you to see only useful comments from others. The policy prevents needless exposure to advertising that I did not approve of beforehand, and especially have not been compensated for.

Because of the policy, I know who is on my list.

There are times when quantity is better. Those times are when the attention is focused primarily on you and what you are providing. Radio and TV come to mind, especially if the program focuses on what you do. The same is true if you are the subject a news article that discusses a topic in which you provide a solution for. Quantity not only helps, but it matters!

There are other times when quality is better. I ended up with a final mailing list of about 110 businesses, after getting down to approximately 150 from an earlier cut of the original list. For the sake of an argument, I would guess that I saved about a dollar or so a postcard, factoring in time, postage and materials, saving about $40? Was this worth the trouble? To answer that question without qualification, no, it wasn't.

But by evaluating nearly 150 websites, I also got better mailing information on at least a dozen more contacts, along with eliminating twenty or so names I actually had on the list that made the second round. Without the research, better than a third of that list I started out with was probably bad. I made some judgment calls on some others, but I have quality contact information.

Better yet, I know who is on my list.

I think that it is all to easy to create a list and send out a bunch of advertisements. If the cost is low, like it can be with postcards, email marketing and cold calling, unqualified lists require numbers to make them work. Not having a list to begin with requires even more numbers, as in the case where too many of you join social networking groups, try hard to make a make a thousand friends, and blast them with advertising. We also want Search Engines to do the job for us. Search Engines work, but the trick is not getting on the first page so much is having getting people to look for you. It helps to have a list.

Better yet, it's a good idea to know who's on your list.

The strength of a list will be illustrated in our feature article - Virtual Invitations, Concrete Acceptances, which is the feature article in a continuation of our series: Social Media, Are They Business Ready?