People receiving marketing or advertising information are a part of what is called a marketing list. A marketing list is a collection of names and contact information, primarily used by companies for advertising purposes by sending materials to multiple recipients. Marketing lists are essential to a company’s productivity. After all, how can a company be successful if no one knows about it? Many companies tend to send out their marketing products to same people over and over again. Those companies acquired a list at some point along the road, and just continue to use that same list over and over again. There are a number of reasons a company should not do this.

• To verify the address. Every year 14-16% of Americans have a change of address. That is somewhere between 39,557,840 and 45,208,960 people each year. What are the chances that someone on the list you’ve used for 3 years now has moved?
• To get your name a little further out there. If you are always sending your marketing product to the same people they will be the only ones who know about you or your company. Expanding your perspective clientele is essential for growing a business.
• A marketing list is a fragile thing. People frequently ask to be removed from marketing lists. When this request is made, its one that needs to be taken very seriously. You don’t want to irritate or drive the client away. Outsourcing a list from a company who regularly cleans and updates their data is the only way to be safe, unless you send your marketing list to one of these companies to be cleaned.
• An updated marketing list also helps target clientele. When you have a specific clientele that is being targeted for your business it is imperative for you to keep an updated list of contacts, if for no other reason than getting the information on prospective clients in your area.

Keeping your marketing lists up to date is important for all the reasons above and much more. Keeping an up to date list for your marketing is just as important as having the most up to date software and tools to keep your company running smoothly. Marketing lists are vital to the growth of a business, but an out of date marketing list is about as useless as a typewriter in this day and age. So keep your marketing lists on point and watch your business flourish.

SOURCES:

http://www.majon.com/articles/business-industry-economy/Mailing_Lists_4521.html

http://answers.ask.com/Society/Other/how_many_people_move_each_year

Photo By: Kevin Shorter – http://www.flickr.com/photos/28648582@N02/