Meet the Broker: Anjali Mehrotra
Today we meet Anjali Mehrotra, account director in the list brokerage services division at the Cornerstone Group of Companies in Canada.
Mehrotra first gained loyalty marketing experience in India, where she managed a membership club database and telemarketing operations in the hotel industry.
“I moved to Canada in 2000 and got started in the list business at Cornerstone as an account executive,” says Mehrotra. “Now I head the nonprofit division.”
She brokers lists for the Canadian Cancer Society Ontario, Multiple Sclerosis Society and UNICEF Canada. Although she mainly brokers postal lists, Mehrotra occasionally makes e-mail list and insert media recommendations.
Relationship building and research analysis skills are essential to success in list brokerage. She recommends treating clients, list managers and vendors as colleagues to foster congeniality.
At home, she and her husband have a two-year-old daughter. Mehrotra describes herself as happy-go-lucky person who enjoys cooking and relaxing in front of the TV. “I’m calm. I don’t stress because there’s always a solution to any problem.”
How does Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) affect the list business?
List owners must obtain consumers’ consent before disclosing personal data and provide an opportunity to opt out from lists. This pertains to names, addresses, gender, telephone numbers, income, credit records, income records and identification numbers.
“You have to have permission to collect data and make consumers aware that the information may be rented,” adds Mehrotra. “List owners have to provide documentation and sign off that a list is compliant with PIPEDA regulations.”
Many lists of Canadians owned by U.S. firms cannot legally be rented in Canada, she says, because they don’t comply with regulations.
“I cannot broker lists that are not registered. We have a list registration department to check to see if a list is compliant with privacy regulations,” she notes. “It’s a challenge to deal with U.S. list owners and list managers if they’re not aware of the regulations in Canada. Our orders must include a notation that the lists are compliant.”
In her opinion, companies offering data card search engine directory services should require list owners to document compliance with list privacy regulations and make that information available to list professionals.
What trends have you observed regarding fundraising lists?
The universe of postal lists available to Canadian brokers has continued to shrink for several years for a number of reasons, according to Mehrotra.
One major factor is that a large number of Christian donor files do not comply with PIPEDA regulations. Brokers unfamiliar with the law that rent such data would be putting themselves in legal jeopardy.
List exchange activity among nonprofit groups has been increasing, which means fewer names are available for rental.
Nonprofits have been putting greater emphasis on acquiring monthly sustainer donors. Few organizations are willing to release lists of these contributors, just as they’re reluctant to release other recency data or new-to-file names.
The best response rates continue to be generated from other donor files and change of address selections from lists used for targeting prospective donors with address label premiums, she adds.
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