Targeted marketing stage 2:
List research

What you need now are lists of prospective customers in your chosen market sectors. There are many sources of lists, some being better than others.

If you are reasonably computerised in your operations (e.g. you can use databases or contact tracking software with mailmerge facilities) try to get lists which are available on disk (or, increasingly, on CD-ROM).

Here are a few sources to try (there's a bit of a UK bias here :-) )

1. Yellow Pages: Good because they are in industry categories, but weak because they are often at least a year out of date, there are no named contacts and (in the UK, at least), postal codes are missing.
2. Business directories: .. such as Kompass and Dun & Bradstreet. Chambers of Commerce and town authorities also sometimes make available lists of local companies, categorised by industry. Business directories sometimes have named contacts listed for each company.
3. Trade directories: There are literally thousands of trade directories, most of them highly industry specific. In the UK, check out the Directory of Directories in your local reference library.

   Further help on this topic...

   You'll find further help on this topic, or closely related issues, in the side columns on this page..

4. Mailing list brokers: These are our favourites for three reasons:
   • They are often reasonably up to date - if you deal with a reputable mailing list broker.
   • They often contain supplementary information on contacts, number of employees, turnover - which helps you to assess the size of the prospect.
   • Increasingly, lists are available on computer disk format (specify comma-delimited format when ordering - that's often the easiest to handle on databases). Two good sources in the UK are Business Pages (01753 583311) and MarketScan (01243 786711)
5. Trade show and exhibition catalogues: specific trade shows often have good catalogues of exhibitors, who may be relevant to your market sector. You can sometimes get back numbers of catalogues from the exhibition organisers. The Exhibition Bulletin (+44 (0)20 8846 2743) is available in both a print and an online version: www.eventservicenet.co.uk

(We'd welcome other sources of names which you might have found useful in the past)

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