Why do businesses spend more money on direct mail advertising than on any other advertising delivery method? When you're deciding how to stretch your advertising dollars, why should you consider direct mail delivery?

Direct mail advertising gets results. It is flexible, it can fit any budget, and it gives you more control over who gets your message than any other form of advertising. You can buy sortable mailing lists that let you choose the geographic and demographic areas you want to target. The more specific your target area, the more valuable these lists can be to you.

Before you start your campaign, you can use the Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 template to create a direct mail marketing plan and track the details, tasks, and milestones for your plan. Then you can build a prospective customer database in Microsoft Office Access 2003 by using purchased customer lists, or you can create your own lists. After assembling a contact list, you can use mail merge in Microsoft Office Word 2003 to produce a mass mailing of publications that are personalized for each contact. Don't forget to check out the professional-quality direct marketing Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 and Word 2003 templates available in the Microsoft Office Online Template Gallery.

The following links take you to the tools and information that you need to develop and conduct a successful direct mail delivery campaign.

• 5 steps to hitting your direct mail targets (Microsoft Small Business Center Article)
  Follow these five simple steps to make your direct mail marketing campaign a success.
• Build a direct marketing mailing list (Article)
  Get the contacts you need to identify and reach the right customers for your business.
• Build a mailing list with Access 2003 (Article)
  Learn how to use Access 2003 to create a versatile database of mail contacts.
• Word mail merge: A walk through the process (Article)
  Use the mail merge features in Word 2003 to automatically address and personalize publications for your contacts.
• Design winning sales and marketing materials with Publisher 2003 (Article)
  Create professional-quality direct marketing materials with Publisher 2003.
• Direct mail marketing campaign plan (Template)
  Use this Project template to track your direct mail marketing campaign.