List Leaders to Develop List Ordering System

The Direct Marketing Association’s group of List Leaders agreed yesterday to spearhead an initiative to create a Web-based set of standards for companies to follow when transmitting orders.

“We want to create a free, open standard that companies could adapt to, to transmit orders and order status information from one to another, peer to peer– transparently without an intermediary,” said David Schwartz, president of 21st/AZ Marketing Inc., Farmingdale, NY, following the quarterly List Leaders meeting held yesterday in New York.

Schwartz is spearheading the effort.

There is a demand for such a service as the industry struggles with mile-high piles of time-consuming paperwork and demands by clients for faster, more detailed reporting. Other attempts have been made to develop a list-ordering system to streamline the list ordering process and a number of list companies have spent millions to upgrade internal systems.

The Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was designed to facilitate easy electronic ordering. But no sooner did the program launch in the spring of 1997 than interest began to wane. Soon it was no longer in use. Seven firms: American List Counsel Inc., Direct Media, The Kleid Co. Inc., List Services Corp, Millard Group Inc., The SpeciaLISTS and Uni-mail-each initially contributed $25,000 to get the program going.

But with the Internet and e-mail now an everyday tool, chances for the survival of such a service look promising, experts said.

“I think its got a much better shot now because the technology is so advanced,” said Dave Florence, CEO of Direct Media, Greenwich, CT, who was involved in setting up EDI.

Another discussion at the List Leaders meeting focused on e-mail marketing. Schwartz said that the model of “double-opt in” is history and that opt out should be the standard model of choice for e-mail marketing.

“There is more support for opt out than ever before,” Schwartz said. “We believe that opt out, in the traditional postal world is successful, and we think it’s the way to go for e-mail.”