Start-up’s DM campaigns target advertisers DESPITE ITS NAME, Alt Spec is a print catalog. If it weren’t for prospective investors’ desire for a online component, Alt Spec might not even have a Web site.
“You can’t start a company without a Web presence,” laughs Nick Felder, who founded the firm as well as its companion site, Altspec.com, with Kyle Bergman.
The name stands for “alternative specifications” and refers to the furniture or lighting an architect, designer or specifier would choose for a particular project.
Conceived of as a high-end product source book for these professionals, Alt Spec will mail its first four-volume annual catalog in June 2001. Its distribution will be controlled, limited to 70,000 pre-qualified architects and design firms.
Models for the catalog are annuals like the Workbook, one of several such volumes used by graphic artists to select illustrators or photographers. As in the model, design companies with appropriate products buy space in Alt Spec’s volumes, which are organized by category.
Felder hopes to attract at least 1,000 advertisers for the first edition. The basic cost would be $6,750 per ad page; advertisers that buy more than one page (which he maintains will be the norm) will get “discounts.”
To target these companies, Felder and his publisher Laura Cardello have been running a series of direct mail campaigns. The first one began in August.
The list was generated in-house by compiling the names of firms who were advertising in periodicals catering to architects and designers. Each drop is 7,000 pieces, and the response has been between 10 and 12 calls a day, Felder says. A conversation rate hasn’t yet been established.
Alt Spec will compile its distribution list in-house as well, emphasizing telephone directories over membership directories in its search for prospects. As is well known in the design community, even the American Institute of Architects, the largest of the designer organizations, reaches less than half the people who qualify for membership. Other sources include SIC codes and registration for such industry events as NeoCon (an exposition for interior design and facilities management).
Felder expects the resulting list to be the most accurate available of designers who spec higher-end – that is, more expensive – projects.
The eventual four-volume set will be sent to the 70,000 qualified names. The distribution will be BPA-audited.
Despite Felder’s offhand humor about the Web site, it’s integrated into the overall program as a value-added benefit. Alt Spec will advertise by making the ad a page on the site, among other ideas.
Altspec.com also will include links to the advertisers’ sites, although there will be no obligation for the advertiser to link back to Altspec.com. Other links will be to sites that may interest architects and designers – for example, designer showroom buildings or industry events.
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