Direct marketing pros will tell you that a great offer, sent to a lousy list, will most likely get lousy results. But finding great mailing lists is tough, particularly for the small business owner. Compiled lists from companies like InfoUSA are better than nothing, but often produce less than desirable results in terms of accuracy and freshness.

About a year ago I wrote about a start-up called Jigsaw. Jigsaw is out to solve the inaccurate, incomplete and out of date mailing list data problem by employing you to keep the list fresh. Jigsaw’s model for keeping their data records up to date, by offering users an incentive to add to and change records, is so successful they have built a user base of 350,000 members and a mailing database of over 7 million in a little more than a year. I think they might on to something.

Their service is perfect for the small business marketer as they can help you locate very hard to find B2B records and unpublished buyer names at a fraction of the cost of any service I have found. Phone verified leads from some boutique mailing list firms might cost $10-50 each, with Jigsaw, accurate names can be had for a $1 (or free if you contribute data to the list).

Jigsaw records come with mailing address, direct phone numbers and email addresses making them perfect for the kind of multi-channel, education based lead nurturing process that is the most effective way for a small business to market.

When you can successfully target your offerings to right people you can concentrate on working a much smaller mailing list with multiple touches and substantially increase your ROI and response.