HR Pro Database - HUMAN RESOURCE CONTACT FILE

Having just completed the update of our HR Pro Database, I thought I would let everyone about the accuracy. I took a look at the 12 month turnover of the file. OUR DATA IS UPDATED MONTHLY! Anyway, the 12 month turnover of this file was about 4% - for b2b data, that would be better than average. Most b2b files have a 5% per year attrition rate. Keep this in mind when using a file that you purchased a couple years ago.

HR PRO DATABASE Datacard - CANADIAN

Managing E-mail Campaigns - The Best ways to Send a blast - 3rd Party Help

With all our day to day operations. There are so many tasks that we have to do - communicating with your customers can sometimes fall to the wayside. Here are some 3rd party providers who can help you speak to your customers.

If you are a Newbie....

Constant Contact has the easiest to use functionality. They provide easy to use web templates and will automatically optout anyone who wishes not to receive future blasts.

www.constantcontact.com

Sending Text Messages online -

MobileStorm Stun - They have the ability to send bulk text messages and emails to pda's and cellphones.

The charge for text messages is pretty costly - 35 dollars a month for 250. Email is much more reasonable.
20 dollars for 1000 emails.

www.mobilestorm.com

Are you handy with HTML??

Campaign Monitor is excellent for people who are handy with HTML or have someone in there firm who does that kind of stuff. Costs are very reasonable - this is the most cost effective option available on the market.

Pop Commerce - Looking to do a viral marketing program that reaches the 20somethings on Facebook?? PopularMedia.com is the resource for you. This cool tool gives you the ability to send out a viral campaign, where if 10 people forward your offer the initiator receives a gift certificate.

www.popularmedia.com

Are you a heavy web user??

Setup cost is about $30k for small businesses.

www.strongmail.com

Need help creating a web template? Using a freelancer can be a great option. Sites like guru.com or freelancers.com can provide very cheap options - not the kind of resource you want to base your corporate reputation on. If you are working on a job for your company, use www.myemma.com - cost per template is $250.

Search Engine Marketing for Dummies - Help with CPC

Canada is still significantly behind the UK and USA in how many professionals and agencies offer search expertise. This is surprizing considering the fact that more Canadians per capita use search regularly than any other country.

As this is seen to be a huge part of the growth in the Agency world. The ability to provide terrific value and cost savings/ROI for advertisers, will be paramount to success in the online world. I am not going to tell you everything you need to know about Pay Per Click. But we will give you a great start and some quality information about paying for the right kind of traffic for your offering.

Here are some of the DO's of CPC. 1. Do you use a platform that gives you exact information about the cost of each adword? Make sure you spend time to develop keywords that are your own. Google makes many suggestions. These are often the most expensive words and result in the worst performance; as you will be competing against everyone else for that persons business. Use variations and misspellings of your keywords to build traffic at a signficant cost savings. For instance, if you are selling 'House Painting' services try using 'hose painting' or 'House Paintng' - No, the traffic of these keywords won't be alot, but you will find that this group will be easier to close and the cost of the click will be reduced by as much as 60%. 2. Utilize the geo function - especially if you are a brick and mortar location. Make sure you are spending the most many per click on the group that is closest to you.

As I am very familiar with this type of marketing, we are happy to walk anyone through the process of creating your CPP program. I have had the most success with Google and am happy to walk anyone through the process.

Feel free to give me a call or send me an email.

More great tips to follow.

Happy clicking.

Troy

troy @ westlists.com

Lists - Big Gains to be had in Consumer Data

With players like Sympatico who has partnered with MSN coming into the industry of Direct Marketing, offering apparently Canada's premier email file. The development of the email lists in Canada and around the world is an area that will have great flux over the next few years. InfoUSA having purchased Direct Media(USA)last this means the continued consolidation of the old world direct marketing and new players bringing new analytics and offerings to the table.

This brings me to the point of my blog today. Sorry for being so scattered. Data for so long was dependant on updates to ensure that you had a quality list for your mail out. Today list sources are being updated so much more frequently with the use of Postal Services - proper augmentation of the file is going to be the most important part of the DM process. Meaning - what does my prospect drive and what did they have on their toast this morning. Instead of what street do they live on.

The latter will be a given - the former helps make you a sale/convert. This means more work on the front end and list clients need to pay attention to how the data is being compiled.

CASINO Direct Marketing

With all the people heading for America's playground - I thought I would get in touch with some of the Casino people to learn more about how DM has worked for Vegas. I was surprized to learn that the profiling efforts that are used, were very jouvenile in some cases. With all the profiling data at our disposable, income, wealth and other selects - should make DM a frenzied part of the casino marketing efforts.