Mailing Lists – They’re Not Just For Computers

The term “mailing list” and indeed many variations on the word “mail” have become more or less synonymous in recent years with e-mail. This is an interesting development, because companies have been using mailing lists since long before the advent of the Internet. In this day and age there is no reason for that to change, when in actual fact there is still a benefit to sending things out in the actual mail – the one that requires no computer.
Building a contact list is something that every company should be looking to do. With the right contacts it is possible to reach a market and get information across to them in a considered way which lets them come to the decision you want them to make. How you go about getting those contacts is a matter for you, but many companies will do it by providing a comments slip with every product they sell. When the customer fills it in and sends it back, you have their details.

If you operate a mail order service, then you have the addresses of past customers. This makes it easy to send them information on more services and products that they might be interested in, and clue them in on special offers. You can do this by sending a flyer, or by writing a more personal letter which speaks directly to the customer as a person. In doing this, you retain an element of trust and straight-talking which can persuade a lot of people to do business with you.

Literacy In Marketing – A Dying Art?

One of the most depressing sights in all of marketing is that of a company trying to appear to be “just like you”. There has been a rise in recent years in the number of companies who make advertisements that try too hard to position the company as “the customer’s friend” and perhaps the most galling example of this is when companies resort to “txt spk” – the abbreviated form of language which is commonly used in text messages to fit into a character limit.

In advertising there are no character limits. You don’t need to misspell words to convince people that your product is something they might like to buy. You don’t need to pretend that you are “just the same” as the customer. And if you do that by dumbing down, you end up insulting their intelligence, which is worse. Clarity is more important than identifying with the customer. In the nicest possible way, you are not their friend. They have enough friends anyway. What they need is a DVD player that works, or a sandwich that sates their hunger and tastes great.
By speaking clearly and literately, you position yourself as a company the customer can respect and who they will be willing to buy from. There is no benefit to pretending that you are something you’re not. At the end of the day you are asking them to hand money over – would a friend do that? Surely they’d give them the items for free?