Renting mailings lists is an expensive, time consuming, and wasteful process.

List brokers, in my experience, are order takers and dont have much gray matter, especially of the analytical sort. Theyd much prefer to throw an SIC list in front of you and have you figure out who your market is, than to help you with quality input of their own.

Really, all their companies are doing is giving you data in a usable form, on disks or mailing labels, or even printed out on lead cards or sheets. Theres value in that, but not much, especially if youre not certain your selects are the right ones.

In other words, if youre at a true MARKETING stage and youre unsure whom to roll out your ultimate campaign to, then renting lists, especially with their minimum purchase requirements, is incredibly inefficient and quite costly.

Why not turn to a FREE resource at this stage?

The best, free list in the world is a Yellow Pages directory.

Not only has it organized prospects by type, alphabetically, while providing addresses and phone numbers, but it tells you something even more valuable.

It tells you which companies have more money than others, at least when it comes to spending on Yellow Pages advertising.

The market leaders, in most of the industries found in the Yellow Pages, are the ones that have purchased the largest ads.

If youre testing a new offer, or trying to determine whether a type of prospect is worth pursuing, why not contact the leading firm, the one with bucks and a high profile, and pitch them, first?

The Yellow Pages enable you to do this.

Lets say you have an offer that can suit dentists or chiropractors, but youre not certain who will be more responsive. Call the largest ads in both categories, and evaluate their receptivity.

You can also use online directories to perform a similar test in different markets.

Once you have your category, then it may be time to contact that list broker.