Company name? Newsletter name? No name at all? The question of your return address. (DM Notebook).

What, indeed, is in a name? Among the general business public, there are probably only a handful of newsletter publishers whose names are known to just about everyone: McGraw-Hill, Kiplinger's, The Bureau of National Affairs--corporate names that carry a certain cachet in themselves and bring respect for any of their titles.

It was 20 years ago now I remember telling an audience of marketers in London, during a seminar on reaching the U.S. market, that "the typical U.S. executive probably opens all the mail he receives from the Financial Times of London, but I wouldn't include the company name on the outer envelope if you've named your company after your dog."

In the U.S. publishers most typcially pick names for obvious reasons--Tom Phillips at Phillips Publishing David Swit at Washington Business Information, or, to express one's ambitions, Leslie Norms at Global Success Corp.

But then there was Pasha Publications which founder Tod Sedgwick did name after his dog (who got the name in honor of Sedgwick's college studies of Ottoman history). If Pasha did use a name on a return address, it was usually Coal Outlook or Business Mailers Review.

For a long time my favorite whimsical name was P&S Publications--the original name of Bill Donohue's financial advisory publishing operation. It came from the insight that, Donohue explained, "when the whole world is looking for gold, sell picks and shovels."

Tod Sedgwick later made a return to newsletters after divesting Pasha Publications, winding up at one point publishing just two newsletters, one for bird hunters and one for ministers seeking to improve their sermons. He called the new operation A Wing and A Prayer.

So--speaking of bird hunting--it was with some trepidation that I asked Don Causey, publisher of The Hunting Report, why his company was called Oxpecker Publications. With some relief I learned that the oxpecker is an African bird. Causey added, "There's an interesting story about that, including a libelous assault on me from the Audubon Society" that he promised to share in a profile in a coming issue.

But I digress. Here are some tips on handling the company name in marketing:

* Don't use it on the carrier or the sales letter unless you are convinced it is well enough known to be perceived as a benefit. The specific newsletter name is almost always preferable.

* Using a return address is probably a good idea in the post-anthrax and Homeland Security age. (Previously DM marketers often advised against using any return address, to pique the curiosity of the recipient enough to open the envelope.) The reverse flap of the envelope, however, is a perfectly good place to put the return address.

* If possible, make it a full return street address and not a P.O. Box number. It shows that you're an actual business in a specific place. Many online marketers even suggest this in electronic communications--to anchor the publication in something more concrete than cyberspace.

* Indirectly related, if you are enclosing a sample issue--live, compiled, whatever--tell the prospect (and the prospect's mail screener) that fact on the outer envelope. "Newsletter Issue Enclosed" establishes value.