A Tale of Pitfalls and Pinnacles on the Road to Efficient List Management.

MAILING lists (Lists of addresses); PUBLIC relations; PUBLIC relations firms; LABELS; COPYING machines; DATABASES; WORD processing software; QUALITY; CORPORATE growth; MANAGEMENT

The article focuses on the importance and methods of maintaining list in a public relation firm. The article points out that manual mailing system works only in a small firm but even for a firm doing 15-20 mailing daily requires a centralized automated system. Xeroxable gummed labels allow anybody to type a single sheet of names and addresses but the final product, an envelope with a label glued to it, is unattractive but cheap and fast to make. Word-processing mail-merge allows to create and maintain mailing lists using a special set of commands and codes. This is called mail-merge or merging in many programs. It involves creating a file with names and addresses distinguished by special computer characters. A second file describes the format of labels. The merging process is very slow, and not perfectly accurate. Almost every merged file requires editing to reposition stray text, prior to printing. A well designed, centralized list management system can reduce the cost of quality and the inevitable complications that arise from company growth.