FOCUS ON: LISTS Feeling Exhausted? Your prospecting lists — and you — can get a much-needed pick-me-up with an influx of nams from commercial files.

1. Test commercial lists that make sense. Identify mail-order companies and publishers with products and content in sync with your cause. For example, environmental groups have had success with magazines like Yoga Journal and Cooking Light.

2. Use donor overlays on response masterfiles. Large list owners append data from cooperative donor databases to their merged subscriber files. Add “presence of children” in the selection formula, for example, and you can find large numbers of charitable moms subscribing to magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens who won’t hesitate to write checks to help America’s children.

3. Seek relevant selections. Many lists offer selections that would be perfect for your cause. Religious and ethnic enhancements can help you zero in on Catholics or Hispanics who feel obligated to help the church or their fellow Latinos. Combine these with income selections and reach the ones with money to give.

4. Take advantage of today’s modeling services. Many large list owners offer free modeling services, whereby your best donors are matched to a buyer or subscriber file to determine similar characteristics. Then, for just the cost of the list, you have an ongoing stream of prospects who look like your best donors.

5. Develop less costly packages for lead generation. If you’re testing busy business executives, you don’t need four pages of dense copy. State your case, make the call to action, and test the waters. This can work for the rest of the population because the inundation of advertising messages is shortening our collective attention span.

6. Test package inserts. For as low as $30/M, you can place your appeal directly into the hands of hotline mail-order buyers opening packages they ordered for themselves. A health group can find supporters among buyers of health products from such catalogs as Gaiam Harmony. Use the postage, list cost and service bureau savings for more testing.