The secret to successful list marketing is good testing. Unfortunately, many companies aren’t sure how to test effectively. They simply rent a list of prospects, send out their e-mail to everyone on that list, and wait for the results. When their campaign isn’t successful, they assume list marketing doesn’t work, and never try it again.

If testing is done right, it can be a powerful tool for any direct marketer.

The list welcome message is the email that goes out to someone automatically and immediately once you add their email address to your list. They’re often marketing disasters…using technical jargon to simply state that address X was added to List Y. Not very engaging.

The reason they’re so bad is that they usually get set up as an afterthought, or they simply feature the pre-programmed message that the email delivery service offers as a default.

Have you ever used Google Maps or Yahoo Local to find a restaurant nearby? If so, you’ve used one of the most powerful online tools available to large and small businesses. The completeness, accuracy, and consistency of this data–called local listings–can turn into a gold mine if the information is managed properly.

So, why are local listings so important?

When a business begins, its executives must think about what population the business’ services and products can best help. The chosen population is known as the target market. Marketing and advertising initiatives are then geared towards intriguing the target market. Smaller businesses may not have a lot of resources to spend searching for the desired market, so smaller businesses utilize direct marketing leads or targeted lists.