If you really want to make a hit with your A list clients and prospects, take the time to find out some background on them and personalize your marketing communications with them. If Ed Jones over there at Acme Industries went to Notre Dame (not such a hard thing to find out) you will score major points by tossing in little bits of information about his favorite subject The Fighting Irish.

Google and Yahoo have both recently launched alert systems that will automatically notify you by email or even by way of your cell phone when any keyword or keyword phrase you select is in the news. Your keyword can be the name of a school, industry, company, sports team, you name it. So when an industry guru makes a prediction for the future of your prospects industry or when a college you are tracking signs a blue chip recruit you can drop a little note to your client or prospect. Now who do you think they are they going to remember come order time?

Yahoo even allows you to add blogs to your alerts so that you can receive notification in your email inbox every time your favorite blog is updated.