What do you get when you put eight list brokers in a room?
Some very blunt remarks about almost everything.
DIRECT learned this in June when it conducted its annual List Roundtable.
Our previous Roundtables featured list managers. This year we invited brokers, who are out there every day making list recommendations and helping their clients solve a host of other marketing problems.
Well, we asked for it.
The brokers criticized list managers for dispensing inaccurate information and for having poorly trained staff. They griped about charges tacked onto the cost of a list.
They bashed the Direct Marketing Association for not heeding their advice on list programming. And they deplored the growing reliance by mailers on co-op databases (especially in the catalog field, where Abacus will have a near-monopoly with the planned phasing out of SmartBase).
The most critical issue facing the list business? The deficit in DM education, they said. The best way to overcome it? One way, practiced by all those at the table, is mentoring.
The Roundtable was held before the news broke about the possible merger of Direct Media Inc. and American List Counsel Inc., so this was not discussed.
Our moderator was Lesli Rodgers, president/CEO of LR Direct Ltd. and a DMA list leader of the year, who created the agenda. She was joined by some of the best brokers in the business, most of whom were recommended by each other.
Though all are competitive, these brokers are seasoned pros – the kind who don’t have to bluster to win you over. They do it by knowing what they’re talking about, and with self-deprecating humor.
We came away with a whole new appreciation of brokers and the work they do. They truly are the most important members of the direct marketing team.
Lesli Rodgers, president/CEO, LR Direct Ltd., Monroe, CT, moderator
Donna Belardi, managing partner, ALC of New York LLC
Kathy Duggan-Josephs, president, D-J Associates, Ridgefield, CT
Mike Heaney, director of publishing list brokerage, Millard Group Inc., Peterborough, NH
Linda Huntoon, president, The SpeciaLists Ltd. New York division, Katonah, NY
Dolores Ryan Babcock, vice president, Acxiom/Direct Media, Greenwich, CT
Charles Teller, executive vice president, Paradysz-Matera, New York
Carolyn Woodruff, vice president, Uni-Mail List Corp., New York
Representing DIRECT were: Ray Schultz, Editorial Director
Kris Oser, Writer
LESLI: OK, what do you want to talk about first?
LINDA: What about the impact of the cooperative databases, or database? It’s disturbing to have all that data readily in one place now. I’m concerned about the eventual effect of modeling all the names and having every mailing piece coming to that one file in time, and not having control over it. The result has got to be phenomenal list fatigue.
CAROLYN: That’s particularly true in the catalog arena, where one particular database supplier [the Abacus Alliance] doesn’t offer any type of monetary commission to brokers, so the community which really disseminates information in our business is alienated from that database. We really don’t have the knowledge to go out and give quality information to our clients. The clients think, “We’re having problems with that database not working, and we’re giving these people all of our names and now they’re dictating to us how much we’re going to pay, on a tier-pricing basis.” So many of these databases are driven by Wall Street now – it’s not an entrepreneurial business anymore.
KATHY: Above and beyond is the database that soon will not be anymore [SmartBase]. It’s very successful for a number of my mailers. Why can there not be more than one database?
CAROLYN: Competition is healthy.
DOLORES: The reason that other database was successful is that it was built not only on multibuyer information but on psychographics and demographics, so that you could find more variables.
LESLI: The consumer mail order universe is dying because we consider the [co-op] database a pyramid. Every single one of those 700 or 800 firms that participate in this alliance are getting the top 10% of that database, and they’re killing it. We all speak to clients and we all know that performance is going down. Edith Ramaci said that the other day she got 57 catalogs in one day. How can you sustain forward momentum if you’re killing the consumer?
DONNA: This problem started long before the databases came, when all of a sudden mailers decided that cost was an issue and started exchanging more. They got smarter, and we got smarter about which segments we went after. A consumer backlash still exists even from traditional direct marketing.
LINDA: But we knew who was exchanging with whom, under what circumstances, what season, what dollar amount. We had a control factor built in because we were talking about it, and knew what was going on. Now it just goes into a black box and we don’t have that control. Everybody is so concerned with short-term results that they will go to a database and live with whatever response rate they get as opposed to going out and testing things that might bring new people into the mail order universe.
DOLORES: I am fortunate to work with a lot of people who do not use the [co-op] database because they are the big players in the industry. They are still doing the traditional direct marketing to the customer. However, the list managers are driving the price up with selection charges. For a three-month hotline on some of these files, they’re charging you $21, $31 a thousand.
LESLI: Plus dollar select.
DOLORES: That’s absurd. You know, I don’t care what you say, you’ve got to have a tremendous response rate on that file…
LINDA: …to justify that kind of cost.
LESLI: And there’s no way you can afford a $51 per thousand selection charge on top of this, I don’t care who you are or what it is you’re mailing.
CHARLES: But on the data side, some of these corporate consolidations have created price elasticity. Driven by Wall Street, these companies are suddenly realizing that they need to be flexible on the cost of data. Combine that with the fact that there’s some really good software out there, and you’ve got modeling back in the hands of the marketer and out of the hands of statisticians.
LESLI: I agree with you that it’s coming back to the realm of reasonable and practical, but it’s not easy and it’s not universal.
KATHY: I disagree that people are bringing it in house. I don’t have a single client who is fully staffed. They are all short on people, which is why they’re asking brokers to do more.
LESLI: Another thing that’s happening is that more list owners are doing regression analysis to improve the value of their lists as rental properties. Years ago, regression was limited to big players like Time Inc. and Reader’s Digest.
Brokers and Managers
LESLI: This brings up another question. Every single day, two or three times a day, I hear the same conversation as I walk through production…
DOLORES: Don’t these people know what they’re talking about?
LESLI: It’s horrendous how uneducated a lot of people in the list industry are, particularly on the management side. They haven’t got a clue what’s in the list.
DOLORES: So many times people who are put on the phone are right out of school. We have a training session at our company that explains to people that if you’re giving me an account with a three-month hotline and I ask you for a three month 50-plus [select], it better be less than that three-month hotline.
LINDA: That’s an extremely labor-intensive job and you’ve got people moving through those positions very quickly. Mailers have people in position that have no business making marketing decisions for a huge corporation. There are managers who don’t know the difference between a three- month, 50-plus [select] and a three-month universe and there are brokers who don’t understand shipping logs.
CAROLYN: I like to say that I’m in the information business that’s full of misinformation. When we start to train people, the first thing we say is: We are th e expert that our client looks for to give them good, solid information about lists. We then have to call the company that has exclusive rights to a particular file and it turns out that the people we speak to know less than we do.
LINDA: We know more from historical data than from the person we’re going to be talking to because that person’s been in their job for three months.
MIKE: I went to work for the Direct Marketing Association right out of college, which has no formal training. You were thrown into a position with enormous responsibility, you made quite a few mistakes, you learned from them and you grew. The point is, sometimes we’re not as patient as we could be with that young person at the other end of the phone in a list management shop. We just have to take a deep breath sometimes and realize it’s not the end of the world. You have to allow them to make mistakes.
DOLORES: One of the things that we’re trying to teach more people is getting counts right. You’re going to throw off my entire circ plan if my counts are off by a million names, and it’s going to cost me a whole lot of money. Don’t minimize that part.
DONNA: The best way for people to really understand the impact is when they work on this side of the fence. We had people on the list management side work for the brokerage side and understand what it is to be a good list manager.
KATHY: You can call it clerical if you want, but we have to instill in them that what they’re doing is incredibly important.
CHARLES: If nobody else is doing it, it’s our responsibility and the company’s responsibility to make sure the young people have depth and understanding beyond what is just in front of their faces.
LESLI: We have a saying at my company: “The fish stinks from the head down.” Now in my office, I’m the head, so I better not. Our people are our best assets; we don’t have anything else on which to base our future.
CAROLYN: We’re all very passionate people. We talk with great passion about what we do. I started at the bottom, as bottom as you can be in this business.
LESLI: I hired you in your first position.
CAROLYN: Yeah, and that was as low as I could get (laughter). Truly, I’ve had a wonderful mentor. I remember you looking at an order and knowing everything that was wrong with it in a heartbeat and that kind of passion fed me. I wanted to know what Lesli knew. That was how my mind worked at that tender young age.
DOLORES: It’s interesting that you should say that because I, too, started at the lowest of the low. I started inputting data cards on a Lang word processor for Leon Henry many years ago, and my mentor was Sally Bloom. It amazed me that she could look at a data card and spout off new first counts and the second counts because she knew how to read it.
LINDA: I feel the need to say in defense of list managers (laughter) the rapid dissemination of information now causes such aggravation. I mean, it used to be a three-month hotline was fine; occasionally you could get a one-month hotline. Now you can get a two-week hotline with dollar amounts overlaid with this, overlaid with that. I can’t imagine what account books on those lists must be like.
CAROLYN: It really doesn’t matter who the manager is anymore unless it’s a very small shop and there’s really hands-on management. The larger the company, the less information you get. Although we have lots of related companies, brokers and managers are diametrically opposed to each other. We do different things.
RAY: None of you seem to be in love with list managers.
LESLI: Considering that I have to throw out 15/16ths of every recommendation I get from a manager, yeah. I can’t tell you how many times I hear, “This is a great list, you’re going to love it, it’s perfect for your clients.”
LINDA: Right. I say, “OK, why?” And they say, “Well, I just have a feeling that it’ll work.”
LESLI: I can’t deal with feelings, I have to deal with markets, and we throw out more than we retain. Look at the number of promotions we get every week – we’ll maybe save 10 of them.
DONNA: We’re all sitting in this room patting ourselves on the back about how well we analyze list costs. But I’ve heard from the list management side that not every broker and their assistant understands the analysis behind list costs.
DOLORES: There’s also a lot of brokers who are pitching their business on their pricing and not on their knowledge of the business.
DONNA: It’s hard sometimes for managers to discriminate as to who’s crying wolf.
CAROLYN: I once had a catalog mailer tell me he didn’t want to pay any hotline charges on any lists, he just wanted to get a minimum of 70% net across the board, and I very nicely said, “I’m really sorry, but I can’t do that for you because it’s my credibility that you’re asking me to put on the line for you. When that list owner sees that you’re netting 85% on this file and I’ve asked for a 70% net, I look like an idiot.” Negotiations have to be straightforward, and done on a needs basis – not just to get you a deal.
LESLI: Going back to technology, I find that people are doing more and more unique things with merge/purge. I’ve always felt it was a marketing tool as opposed to just a science of identifying duplicates. But more of our clients are doing mega-merges, not for the sake of mailing anything, but to identify information about their house files. They don’t have the ability to maintain a database in house, so they create a temporary database within the merge/purge environment just to study it.
KATHY: About three years ago, the service bureaus had come a long way, and all of a sudden merges were being done just like that. But it’s gone from two weeks to one week to five days, and is now heading back to two weeks.
LESLI: How many managers understand merge/purge?
LINDA: There are very few. But there are also very few brokers who really look at merge/purge reports.
DONNA: There are a lot of brokerage companies where the report gets handed off to the accounting department, and they never even see the report.
CHARLES: Brokers try to gain efficiencies by creating very simple reports that speed up the process of providing computer verification. These are unacceptable because the paper does not have the merge/purge house’s name on it. So the industry has to come together as a whole on a lot of these issues.
LESLI: Boy, we’ve tried.
CAROLYN: We take merge/purge reports and we convert them into our own formatting to reduce the paper flow.
KATHY: Right now I understand that the fourth column on a merge report is called eight different things for people, and I don’t know how to interpret it.
LESLI: Years ago, one of the biggest questions in our industry was: How do we cut down on the number of people we have in our accounting department? Well, let’s stop providing spreadsheets. At my firm, we don’t provide spreadsheets because we don’t want to make all those copies – we send the payment adjustment form. If you want a copy of the spreadsheet, we’ll fax it to you.
LINDA: If somebody says I don’t accept this, we get out our black marker and send them the report on all the lists, and they never call me back.
KATHY: Five years ago, some list broker came up with this brilliant idea: Since we all use the same service bureaus, have them all come up with the same standardized report for billing purposes only. The reaction was, “Oh no, our stuff is special.”
LESLI: Which is why there is no such thing as a uniform order in our industry because our orders are special and we all know who’s on whatever system, so we won’t standardize.
LINDA: The same is true of reformatted tapes. The idea that every computer house supplies data in their own format so that the receiving computer house has to reformat it is absolutely ludicrous.
KATHY: I think that they’re all formatted exactly the same so they can charge more.
LINDA: And they’re costing the mailers money.
DONNA: They’re charging to have the file e-mailed…
LESLI: …like $100.
LINDA: It impacts the health of the mailer and if the mailer isn’t healthy, who is?
KATHY: It’s ludicrous.
CAROLYN: Do you charge cancellation fees to your clients? Every manager does.
LINDA: I will charge if I have a mailing canceled but for an individual order here or there, I won’t.
LESLI: I do. When a mailer says to you, “Here are 2 million names worth of orders, give me the million that I have and exchange some,” I’m going to charge him for every order that gets canceled because he’s asking me to spin my wheels for nothing even though I’ve already tried to pre-clear everything and was refused on the million he wants on exchange. We’ll send him an order, then they’ll change their mind. Excuse me. I don’t think so.
LINDA: But that’s different. As a general rule, managers try to charge. This is a policy.
LESLI: But I also feel I think they’re entitled to it.
LINDA: I do, too.
LESLI: It’s different if it’s canceled for a cavalier reason. If it’s canceled because the tape was bad, or if it arrived late or was lost at the service bureau…
LINDA: Then make the service bureau pay.
LESLI: Whatever, but there are reasons why a manager deserves a cancellation fee. Their commission is lower. They have just as much paperwork and there are some brokers who cavalierly place orders only to cancel them at the drop of a hat.
CAROLYN: I had a publishing client in a partial exchange. The client asked for 200,000 names on exchange but wound up snaring 150,000 and the balance on rental. The manager involved, who wasn’t happy because it wasn’t a pure rental, added selection charges that didn’t exist on the data card. He added like a $5 a thousand charge and a hotline charge of $15, and we were taking like the whole file. It’s a company that we all do a lot of business with. My last comment was, “Show me where it appears on your card. Show me where it is in MIN, show me where it is in SRDS.” And when I said that to his assistant, she said “What’s SRDS?”
Brokers and Clients
RAY: How do your clients figure into these issues?
MIKE: Younger and younger clients are being put in decision-making roles, and they’re a little nervous about pulling the trigger on some of our ideas. They no longer feel like they have a cushion of investing and making a mistake.
KATHY: Our clients have their list-owner hat on one day, and the next day they have their mailer hat on. As a mailer, they expect to get all these counts and get them correctly. Then they tell their list manager, “You must send me a whole lot more money than you sent me last year. I want money, money, money. But you can’t have any of the counts for all the selections that I’m asking for from every other list owner.” So it’s up to us to sit those clients down and educate them. “Here’s what you’re expecting from everybody; you need to be able to give it back the same way and maybe even better.”
LESLI: When I started out all those years ago, lists costs were somewhere around $30 to $35 a thousand.
LINDA: That was a long time ago.
LESLI: And today, as you know, for a good catalog list I’m paying close to $200 a thousand. Now we also used to get orders for 500,000 names at a pop. Now we’re happy when we’re getting orders for 25,000 to 50,000, and the clerical staff has to process a lot of paperwork whether it’s on the brokerage side or the management side.
DOLORES: Recently a client came to us and asked us to cut our commission, and this is a client where every order is 5,000 names on exchange, 7,000 names here, and I went through and I did a four-page spreadsheet of how much money we were making on each order, and they got happy.
LINDA: We are consultants now more than we were five years ago and we’re going to become more and more so. That’s where the flaw is – that we get paid commission on the result of all the work, but not for the work we do.
CHARLES: In this bizarre business, the media is simply the way we get paid. What we do is research and analysis.
LESLI: The more work we do, the less we get paid and the better we do it, the less we get paid. I remember walking into a meeting the first time I was meeting with a mailer and he said, “OK, last year I paid $385,000 to a list broker and what did I get for it?” LINDA: Well, I would assume he got a who le lot of names (laughter).
LESLI: But in their own minds they’re already overpaying us. When they say they want a commission discount and they say, let’s take 10% off, they don’ understand that that’s taking 50% off our income and out of our pocket.
RAY: According to Bob Castle, the late Annette Brodsky had 250 lists that she would deal with. How many lists do you have to be conversant with to be an effective broker?
LESLI: Ed Burnett used to say that no one person could know more than 1,200 lists. I don’t where the 1,200 figure came from or how many of them he owned. I think that if we restrict ourselves to that 250 or 1,200 or whatever it is, we’re limiting ourselves.
CHARLES: The list broker is a very different animal than he was 15 years ago because of technology. It’s no longer in my head so that it’s gone if I get whacked by a bus tomorrow. Technology’s created the ability for us to basically dismantle and look at the marketplace like a stockbroker looks at companies. There are certain elements that make it work. You take the unit of sale and behavior and all the demographics and psychographics that you find in the file, and harness all that in a box called a PC. That information should be accessible to anybody in the company to have in some format so that the people on the front lines understand it.
CAROLYN: But I also think that what the computer has been able to do for us is the historical – in a sense of what was this company before and what is it today and what’s changed about that list. What about that list, complexities of that file – the complexion, if you will, of that file. Why is it different today than it was two years ago, Mr. Mailer, when you tested it and it bombed?
LESLI: Going back 20 or 25 years…
LINDA: That’s far enough.
LESLI: …the whole perception of the list industry was this guy who stood on the corner in a dirty trench coat and said, “Hey, buddy, you want to buy a list?” Today, there’s still a certain degree of that perception. But in reality, we’re at a totally different date and place. We’re not on 34th Street anymore. We’re way uptown.
E-mail Lists
LESLI: Is there anyone in the list industry actually making money on the Internet?
DONNA: I think there are. The biggest issue is the start-up costs involved in really understanding what e-mail interactive is. Once you get past that and put in that investment, then I think the money is coming in. We’re in a very pivotal time. We’re just getting to the point where marketers are making money, so therefore list companies also are starting to make money.
MIKE: Is anyone else experiencing working with clients where e-commerce versus traditional direct mail are competing internally?
DONNA: Dollars are definitely being shifted, especially if a client’s had bad experiences or weak results from traditional direct marketing efforts. They’re really looking for new solutions.
MIKE: But if you’re trying to talk to someone about e-commerce as a solution, at that point they put up their hands and say, “That’s down the hall, direct mail is mine. Help me to get direct mail to work so that e-commerce doesn’t eat me.” It’s not across the board, but that’s been interesting to me the last few months.
LINDA: The Internet is simply another channel. There has to be space advertising. There has to be direct mail. There has to be e-mail. It all has to come together because there’s a place in an overall marketing plan or strategy for all of it.
CHARLES: Integration is absolutely key.
LINDA: The Web basically is going to be a fulfillment device as opposed to a selling device. You may decide to buy a book after reading the review in the Sunday Times Book Review. The sale is made there, but the actual purchase is made on the Internet.
CHARLES: Direct mail is a package-selling medium, a Web site is an experience. It’s a relationship. I think that’s great, it goes right into fulfillment.
KATHY: Web sites are not going to replace catalogs. You still have to drive people to the site with catalogs or other media.
LESLI: I don’t remember who said this: In the 21st century, the way of direct marketing is going to be mass personalization. Because the technology is what it is, we can actually go out and customize something to you. And because of that and the fact that we know so much about you, we can do more of what you want.
CHARLES: Drop a cookie and when you come back, it’s: “Hi, Charles, welcome back. We noticed that you were looking at the Pocono Mountain Raceway. Do you know that there’s a club meeting in your neighborhood on Thursday?” I mean that’s incredibly scary, but very palatable.
Privacy and Sweeps
LESLI: What about the regulatory issues confronting direct marketers? The consumers are shrinking because there’s been a tremendous amount of press in the last 12 to 18 months about privacy. People are concerned about children getting onto the Web, and the new rules are based not only on the Web access, but on all direct marketing. We have the whole issue of sweeps. We have the political arena gearing up for the year 2000 presidential election where the word database is associated with the White House and who got to sleep in which bedroom. The consumer’s perception of direct marketing per se, even though it’s pervasive in their lives, is a negative one – more so than it was 10 years ago.
LINDA: We seem to be taking better care of our customers, so the effect of that publicity is probably restricted to new people.
DONNA: I don’t think it’s impacting people who normally respond to us. But I do think that getting 57 catalogs in one day will negatively affect those people.
CAROLYN: The sweepstakes players have gotten horrendous publicity in the last 18 months. But I’m beginning to see an upswing again on those files. The mailers who are in the sweepstakes business are trying to notch these offers to get that universe to work because they’ve gone through eight months of no available universe. And, when you get through your merge, you’re mailing, like, 34% of the available universe without them.
LESLI: I represented a company that was very heavily into sweeps. And when I saw a copy of their current piece I called them and said, “Have you checked this with your legal department? I don’t think this is mailable the way it is.” And they said, “Oh yeah, our attorneys say it’s the way to go.” And this was two years ago.
They’re no longer allowed to mail that piece. They’re now trying to modify it so that they can mail it with as few changes as possible. The problem is, it works.
CAROLYN: And it’s better than what they had before.
LESLI: As long as it’s the control piece, they’re not going to change it no matter what you say. That’s the problem because being morally right and being successful don’t always go hand in hand. So you can stand up and say that piece has some problems in it, ethically. And they’ll say, “I’ve tried a more ethical piece and it doesn’t beat the controls. If I have to bring in 5 million subscribers a year, I’m going to use the piece that cost-effectively brings me 5 million subscribers a year.”
LINDA: It’s very difficult to figure who should be the guardian of the consumer. Who is equipped? Who knows how? Who can do that job?
LESLI: The problem is that a crook is a crook is a crook, and crooks aren’t going to care about whether or not they’re in good standing with the Direct Marketing Association.
CAROLYN: We’re talking about very reputable companies getting much more promotional because the bottom line is they have to. To say we’re not going to work with them is not a fair statement. These people aren’t crooks.
LESLI: I agree with you. I have another client who has a very unpromotional sweepstakes, with no extra things whatever, and big type. It’s a straightforward, plain-vanilla sweeps with clear guidelines. But they have 14 or 15 nuisance suits against them from individuals who say, “I don’t like it.”
CAROLYN: If these sweepstakes companies being looked at very seriously by the attorneys general of 14 states have to lay off X number of people, we have to let Congress know that their constituencies are made up of those people.
CHARLES: And mention the fact that they’ve given away $92 million. It’s a gray area. We’re talking about politicians with constituencies they’re trying to satisfy. As it has been for the past 30 years, we’re a very easy target. We’re in everybody’s mailbox, we’re out there under a microscope.
RAY: The states should know all about this – they run so many lotteries themselves. But isn’t it up to people in the industry to go and argue the case to their elected representatives?
LINDA: I once tried to educate my congressman on the use-tax issue. I finally got the appointment at 9 o’clock in the morning. I got all dressed up and went to his local office. He was 40 minutes late and came in with a crony, and he was dripping Egg McMuffin all over the desk. When I finally got him to sit and listen to what I had to say, he told me that he had to vote for what the chairman of this commission told him to, blah, blah, blah. So you can save yourself some time.
LESLI: Do you think that e-mail lists are good for the business or do they potentially send up a flag for the privacy advocates?
DOLORES: Both.
MIKE: It goes right back to what we said earlier about the notion of getting 57 catalogs in a day. Whether it’s 57 catalogs or e-mail messages with the same message, it pays if mailers are smarter and lists are better segmented. The DMA helps us get the message out that we’re trying to do the right things.
CHARLES: There are some 500,000- to 600,000-name e-mail files that we really don’t know much about, like where those names are coming from. What concerns me is that marketers are jumping on the bandwagon. They’re having their 16-year-old nephew put up a storefront site and trying to drive traffic through it.
DONNA: I’d like to see the DMA do a little bit more in maybe promoting or putting out good PR about this business. Not so much to combat the negatives, but good PR to say, “This is a great channel of marketing, this is why it’s good for the consumer.”
The DMA
LESLI: How’s everyone feel about the DMA?
KATHY: Gee, it got quiet.
MIKE: I am absolutely a fan of the DMA, and since I worked there have certain biases. But a lot of the negativity that comes from managers and brokers is unfair. The DMA really is fabulous. We are the practitioners. If we don’t think List Vision [formerly List Day] reflects the issues of the list industry, then we’ve got to volunteer to speak. I know from working there that it’s a struggle to get speakers, and a struggle to get people to be on planning committees.
LESLI: I don’t think there’s anybody in this room who has not volunteered and served.
LINDA: I was raised to do this at the right hand of Walter Karl. I’ve worked on this committee and that committee. But the DMA has a bureaucracy that says, “We are the DMA and you will do it our way.” It’s extraordinarily frustrating to take productive time from clients to serve in some capacity down there, and they say, “We don’t care, we’re going to do it our way.”
LESLI: I resigned my membership in the DMA. What frustrates me beyond belief is that I honestly do not think the DMA perceives the list industry as being a part of direct marketing. They represent the mailers and the big hitters because that’s who funds them, and they don’t understand our role in the business. I certainly am not going to boycott them, and I would help them any way that I could. But I resent the fact that they do not represent the list business when they go to Washington. One of the things that bothers me most is the idea that I could actually be considered guilty of a felony if one of my clients does something I didn’t know about. I’m guilty of a felony? I’m sorry. I don’t think that’s an appropriate representation of who and what we are.
MIKE: I don’t disagree with you or Linda. I think I’ve heard that from everybody who left the DMA. But when I worked at the DMA, it was perpetually the same 20 people, regardless of industry segment, that spoke and served. The bulk of the industry does not participate.
LINDA: Why is it that the DMA supports the councils with entry-level people who don’t know anything about direct marketing, and like all of us are overloaded?
KATHY: To anyone who thinks the councils are so understaffed and overloaded with work, what did the List Database Council do in the last three months?
LINDA: Well, we did put on a very successful sweepstakes session. Jerry Cerasale, who is a great speaker, spoke to people about what was happening in Washington – what he thought Congress was going to do with regard to sweepstakes mailers. We also do a survey of who’s mailing what in terms of seasonality. It’s true that we have a hard time trying to get feedback from the mailers and the vendors out there as to what they think would be of benefit to them so we can provide that.
CAROLYN: I’m on the List Database Council operating committee and on the List Vision operating committee and we’ve had a tremendous amount of frustration this year. Number one, this is no longer a council that’s supported by the brokers or the managers. We have tremendous difficulty getting people to attend the sessions. Part of what we were asked to do for List Day was to kind of reinvent it. The DMA, because it’s an economically driven business, was thinking about dropping the event, although when I got into this business it was the happening day; mailers came from throughout the country to attend it. What happened on the operating committee was that we came up with what we thought was a great platform for the day and we were vetoed every way down the line. We had to work hard to get them to agree to tier pricing, which they did fairly late in the cycle. We wanted to have a basic training session similar to Lists 101…
LESLI: …which was discontinued.
CAROLYN: And we were vetoed. We were told we’re not allowed to make decisions about pricing. We weren’t allowed to make decisions about venue. Then there was the issue: How do you promote List Day? The marketing person – a very junior person – said, “We mail the last six years worth of DMA List Day attendees,” and we all laughed because most likely none of those people are still in the company they were with six years ago. I think the DMA should listen to the volunteers – people who actually work in the industry.
KATHY: I get three of everything.
The Future
LESLI: Let’s end on a positive note. What do you all see as our greatest opportunity moving forward?
DONNA: The intermingling of the media – lists, space, the Internet and direct mail, and making it all a whole. It just excites me.
CHARLES: The Web presents what we’ve always been talking about in traditional direct marketing: one-to-one marketing, building relationships and the back-end efficiencies offered by this medium. But in the end it’s a multichannel effort. There is still room for direct mail to be an integral part of it.
LINDA: The most exciting thing about the industry in general is that it changed so much – almost every five years there’s something new coming on. Right now it’s the Internet. That’s the most exciting thing. But five years ago it was private promotional databases.
KATHY: The opportunity for us is that mailers are considering list brokers to be real experts now, which I think is opening up a lot more doors to allow us to get more involved.
DOLORES: That’s probably the most exciting part of it – that we are so hands-on.
MIKE: To me the greatest opportunity is the recurring thing that came up today – the fact that people are asking, “Who’s the next generation?” It tells me that somebody who’s still fairly young and junior in this business has a place in it.
CAROLYN: For me, it’s being a media specialist and seeing the integration of all the media and understanding all of them and how they’re going to impact each other. Then there are highs and lows to our careers. There are disappointments and there are fabulous peaks when you see response levels going off the table like you just never thought would be there for a client.
LESLI: So I think the opportunity is basically everything that we’ve said. The idea that we can pass knowledge on to somebody else, and the fact that we are allowed to take on so much more than we’ve ever been able to before, and the fact that we are now finally beginning to be respected as a profession.
Network
