Today we meet Kate Hauspurg, an account executive with Catamount Group, a direct response marketing agency in Bethel, CT. Hauspurg feels privileged for the chance to return to her roots in Internet media.
“I started off in interactive services, but I ended up doing mainstream direct marketing work with postal lists and insert media for years. But now at Catamount, I’m getting back to working with interactive media,” says Hauspurg.
She worked in list management and with interactive media at Millard Group Inc., starting as an intern in 2000 before graduating from Western Connecticut State University. With a degree in marketing in hand, she was hired full time a year later.
“Back then it was just the beginning of the Internet and it was new to everyone. It was exciting just get people to listen to what you were saying about this then new medium,” says Hauspurg.
She left the online world around the time of the dot-com crash to focus on direct mail media elsewhere. First, she took a job with Plus Media as an insert media broker; later she became a list broker at Direct Media.
In Sept. 2004, Hauspurg joined Catamount Group to work in list management. A year a half later she switched to list brokerage—and more recently also began working with Internet media again—to pursue new revenue opportunities.
Hauspurg still mostly works with consumer postal lists, but she sees demand for e-mail lists and services like banner ad placement increasing, as clients seek new ways to acquire customers online and cut paper and postage costs.
“I’ve been working more with clients doing solo e-mail and banner ad placements recently,” she adds.
During her career she has focused on consumer subscription, credit card and membership marketing. Her current client roster includes MetLife, Gerber Life Insurance, Diabetes Life, Black Heritage Society, Sandvik and dLife. Her main insert media client is a bank targeting Hispanics.
With new technology, brokers who know the “right people” can access data from not only the Internet but also postal-generated lists within an hour, compared to a few years ago when it usually took about three days to obtain a list, she says.
Life at home for Hauspurg centers round her growing family. She and husband are expecting their second child in November. They already have a son nearly two years old, and a pet Labrador Retriever.
What’s the difference between Internet media and postal list brokerage?
Most brokers work directly with e-mail list owners and companies offering lead generation services on Web sites, rather than list management companies. “It’s not something readily accessible like postal lists are through SRDS or NextMark,” she says.
Turnaround time can be quicker when brokers work directly with owners, but brokers generally have more price negotiating leverage with postal list managers, based on her experience.
“In the postal world there’s probably a lot more wiggle room on list pricing than people are willing to admit. There’s less leverage negotiating with (Internet media) owners. I like that because it’s not as much as a game,” says Hauspurg.
How is list selection affected by good and bad economic times?
“During good times clients go after specific direct response lists. Right now, I don’t want to say compiled lists, well, people want other lists at wholesale prices. By other lists I mean online search-generated lists. I don’t want to say compiled and offend anyone,” says Hauspurg.
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