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What you do want to find out is what publications your ideal prospects read? For instance, if you sell Internet Web sites, you may want to go after people who have a business, or who may be planning to start a business. You'll find these people read certain magazines, newsletters, and that many of them frequent certain types of web sites.
You may also find many of these people have certain other things in common. They may earn more than $100,000/year, for example, or they may drive certain types of cars, they may own homes worth more than $250,000, etc. These items are known as “demographics.”
This is a big word that really only means that we have created a group of names based on some data such as average household income, average age, average home purchase price, etc. Demographics, in short, are simply another way to segment out your perfect prospects.
When it comes to buying prospects, you have some choices to make. Do you want to spend a lot of money per name and get a better quality lead and likely a much higher response rate, or do you prefer to spend less money, get more names and get a lower response rate?
Here's the difference. You can rent a "compiled" list of prospects for very little
money usually about a nickel a name. These lists are compiled from many data sources, and may or may not be ideal for your offer. In other words, the list is compiled using a loose set of criteria and the names on that list may be very interested in your, or may only hold a casual interest, or even no interest at all. You will have no way of knowing this in advance without actually testing the list with your mailing.
My favorite lists are subscriber lists. Think about this. A person who pays money to a magazine to receive the publication each month is serious about that topic. So serious, they were willing to drop their own money to get access to the information contained in the publication. This very publication may well rent out their subscriber list to advertisers just like you.
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