Meet the Broker: Dave Nussbaum

Today week we meet Dave Nussbaum, founder and president of Direct Network Inc., a DR agency that does list brokerage for National Golf Center, Affinity Group Inc. and its affiliate TL Enterprises, MBI and the Saturday Evening Post.

He founded Direct Network in 1994. Prior to that he worked for CAMA/George-Mann Associates and Prescott Lists. He began his career in 1979 as a clerk in the list brokerage department at Names Unlimited and by the time he left he was a database manager.

“List brokerage is ever challenging and it’s always changing,” said Nussbaum. “I do mostly postal list brokerage but there is some overlap with e-mail lists.”

He anticipates within five years that postal list brokerage will decline significantly, supplanted by growth in e-mail list brokerage and other types of list services.

Nussbaum shares the common broker’s lament concerning the shrinking universe of available names in many market sectors, although he’s optimistic about growth in some areas.

“A few years ago there used to be 50,000-name monthly hotlines available in the health market, but now it’s more like 5,000 or 10,000 names per month. I’m just using that as one example, but this happening in many sectors,” he lamented.

But Nussbaum sees positive developments too. Supply and demand is hot for lists targeting juveniles and maturing Baby Boomers, the latter which he described as the emerging geriatrics market. “Those markets are crowded with a lot of lists,” he said.

When he’s not fussing with clients or lists, Nussbaum collects art and antiques. He’s currently single and has a son, 19, and a daughter, 16.

After hours he’s a music devotee. His favorite groups include the Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hot Rods, the Eagles and Don Henley. “I enjoy music tremendously. It’s my outlet. I just attended a Heaven and Hot concert and I’m going to be seeing Henley next,” he said.

How has list brokerage changed in recent years?

“There’s a lot more brokerage firms out there now. It’s become much more competitive,” said Nussbaum

Agencies are offering more list-related services such as response analysis, rather than merely making list recommendations. More recently lettershops have begun offering list brokerage.

“I think it’s unfortunate and detrimental to (the profession) when brokers don’t have direct marketing experience,” said Nussbaum.

“I know of a Fortune 500 company that had a bad experience. And what happened is, it got back to the board and now they think direct marketing won’t work for them.”

What concerns you most about the future of the list business?

“My biggest concern is government intervention with respect to privacy,” Nussbaum said.

Recent legislative attempts to establish state regulated do-not-mail lists are in his opinion foolhardy, because the Direct Marketing Association already operates a national mail preference service to purge names from active mailing lists.

Existing list regulations like the federal do-not-call telemarketing list registry and Can Spam for e-mail lists have put list brokers and list managers in legal jeopardy and driven up the cost of doing business, as lawyers become involved in reviewing telemarketing scripts and list applications, according to Nussbaum.

“I imagine that brokers have become more selective about picking the lists and programs that they use. I know that I have,” he added.

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