Century List Services

The Target Audience

February 13, 2008 – 11:33 am
In direct marketing there is a lot of talk about the “target audience”. What does that really mean? Do you know who your target audience is? If you don’t know, you should, because it is at the heart of everything you do in marketing your business, products, and services; from the purchase of sales leads data to implementing an effective direct mail campaign. You could have the best marketing message ever, the best vehicle sent out over and over. If the right potential buyer doesn’t receive your message, nothing gets marketed; no one acts. Putting yourself in front of a potential buyer is the key to marketing and selling. No potential buyers? No selling. The right target audience might be the right segment, the right niche within a segment, or the right people within a niche. If you are marketing to banks, are you marketing to the bank president or branch manager? ...

Posted in Direct Mail | 1 Comment »

Automotive Lists and DDPA Compliance

February 7, 2008 – 4:00 pm
Direct mail is crucial to the marketing efforts of car dealerships. After the newspaper, direct mail is the most used medium. To get the best direct mail response rate, that requires acquiring the best automotive data available. When looking to purchase automotive lists from a data provider, it is different than other types of lists in that there are legal prerequisites the list must meet. It is important to ask if the automotive data a list provider offers is compliant with The Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA). The DPPA regulates disclosure of personal information in state drivers' records and restricts the ability of state motor vehicle departments (DMVs) to sell or disclose personal, identifying information without an individual's consent. There are exceptions for law enforcement, pollution control and other limited purposes. Any use not specifically authorized by the law is deemed "improper." Although the law does not ban the sale or disclosure of ...

Posted in Automotive Leads | No Comments »

Direct Marketing Offers That Work and Don’t Work

January 30, 2008 – 3:04 pm
The following are tips for direct mailing offers that work: White Paper / Position Paper A white paper refers to information provided by an expert. The term “white paper” comes from the fact that they are prepared very simple and straight forward– black ink on (usually) white paper, research paper style. The goal of the white paper is to provide meaningful information, research findings, trends, predictions, and positions. White papers give the impression that you are an industry leader or expert. Special Report A special report is an article full of information that is of interest to your prospect; especially created to address your prospect’s interests and challenges. Tool Kit Tool kits (such as a How-To checklist, an audio CD, a workbook, articles, a directory, etc.) offer information-based tools that make work easier and suggest that something will get done. Workbook / Tutorial A workbook or tutorial offers step by step instructions, suggestions, or explanations of a process ...

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Direct Mailing Lists for Your Campaign

January 22, 2008 – 3:08 pm
The following are the different types of mailing lists that you can use for your direct marketing campaigns: House List The House List is an internal list compiled from information you already have. The list includes people you already know or have had contact with. Typically, this is a list of customers, a list of people who have inquired about your services, or have sent a response to you. With your best prospect being current customers, your house list represents your best prospect list for selling more products or services to. It will outperform a high-quality purchased or rented mailing list because the people on list already know you, trust you, and have confidence in their business with you. A house list is built over time and will prove immensely valuable. Compiled List The Compiled List is a list of composed, collected, and edited information. The data had been collected or accumulated from several sources and ...

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As We Look Forward to 2008…

December 28, 2007 – 3:45 pm
...the entire team at Century List Services would like to wish you a happy New Year. We look forward to helping your direct marketing efforts to success by fulfilling your direct mail, telemarketing, and sales data needs.

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How to Successfully Acquire Business Leads

December 7, 2007 – 5:35 pm
Through out my career in the Data Industry, I have been faced with customers who have been burned in the past by list companies on a daily basis. I have heard every excuse in the book to why they have been burned. However, there is a simple way to avoid this. Follow these simple rules below and I assure you, you will choose a winning lead provider.    Rule #1. Understand Marketing: Marketing is not a science. If it was, every business would be rich and your leads would cost a fortune. Set realistic goals prior to seeking out leads.  Rule #2: Know Your Deal: You must have an idea in your head of whom you want to contact. You must understand what your customer looks like and what drives them. If you don’t know who your customer is or will be, then your leads will be a shot in the dark. Going ...

Posted in Business Leads | 1 Comment »

Finding The Right Business Leads

December 7, 2007 – 5:29 pm
When marketing to businesses some of the more difficult tasks are finding the right companies to contact and identifying the final decision maker.  Whether you are doing a Direct Mail or Telemarketing campaign, you will only be as good as the list you are using.  Therefore, it is of utmost importance that you chose the right Business Leads for your marketing efforts.    There are many varieties and sources for Business Leads.  Finding the right Business Leads starts with using the best sources of data to produce the most accurate information which will yield the highest ROI. With over a decade of experience working with all of the sources of Business Leads we have identified and use the most trusted, accurate, selectable and comprehensive Business data available in the list industry today.   Currently there are over 13 million records available in our US Business Database.  Also, there are over 50 fields of selects ...

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