Spot the odd one out: SW SE NW NE WC EC
A young graduate was given the job of appointment setting for the marketing director who wanted to 'touch base with our London clients' and have a few lunches in Soho. The Cambridge graduate selects a list of London clients using these postcodes and gets down to making the phone calls. He makes four appointments and proudly hands the marketing director the lunching schedule.
"Newcastle! Why am I spending Thursday afternoon in Newcastle!" yells the director.
Rest of team sniggers; the trainee assumed that if London has postcodes for South West, North West and South East, it also has one for North East London. It doesn't - NE1 is the postcode for central Newcastle.
If you've put the time in selecting your mailing lists by postcode, you probably have a postcode map of your local area in your head. But if not, here's a link to the Electric Marketing postcode map, for you to bookmark www.electricmarketing.co.uk/map.html
Selecting mailing lists by postcode may seem laborious and nerdy, but it does save time and budget if you are buying data for a campaign inviting people to an event. Admit to yourself that however triumphant your breakfast seminar, few executives from Exeter will make the trip to Manchester for breakfast. So don't bother mailing or emailing them. Save your budget, look at the postcode map and only invite companies from within a certain radius. You don't need to get into numbered postcode districts for business marketing - that really is nerdy - using the first letters of the postcode is usually enough. You won't send out as many invitations, but your response rate will be more impressive and you will save budget on data, print and postage or ebroadcasting.
For (almost impartial) advice on buying and selecting mailing lists, see our guide How To Buy Mailing Lists For Email & Telemarketing Campaigns
[gallery]