Meet the Broker: David Kanter

Today we meet David Kanter, president and CEO of AccuList Inc., based in Ventura, CA. Despite his job title and being a member of the Direct Marketing Association’s List Leaders Group, Kanter portrays himself as a humble list broker.

“I’ve got the important sounding title, but I’m with a small company. I’ve chosen not to delegate everything. Admittedly, I don’t write up all the orders, but I do write up hundreds of orders each year, says Kanter. “I personally broker tens of millions of names annually.”

Kanter co-founded an agency that morphed into AccuList in 1988. “I used to promote trade shows. That’s where I learned about direct mail and putting together databases,” he says.

He hasn’t stopped making list recommendations and writing up orders since he started in the business 24 years ago.

His first list brokerage job was with the direct mail advertising agency now known as Wilson Marketing Group Inc. He laughs now, but he showed up for his job interview wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt.

“I knew about the SRDS directory from my trade show promotion work and that’s why I got hired,” he says.

Kanter started out working with business-to-business lists, but now he does a mixture of consumer and business-to-business list brokerage.

Clients that he handles list brokerage for include Wine Country Gift Baskets, Big Island Candies, J. Paul Getty Museum, TransAmerica Auto Parts Co. and the United Farm Workers of America.

When he’s not researching lists and filling up binders with recommendations, Kanter bicycles in the desert near his home in Southern California. His passion for the outdoors also includes hiking and horseback riding, and he does volunteer work for environmental groups.

What will the list business be like in the future?

“I’d say in the next 12 to 24 months we’re going to be reading reports that direct mail has stopped growing or about negative growth,” says Kanter. “This has already happened in the U.K. and I think the U.S. will go the same way.”

Changing market conditions will force list brokers to stop clinging to catalog and direct mail lists, a fundamental shift in the market that he believes will have a greater financial impact on brokers than the rise of cooperative databases in recent years.

Future success in his opinion will depend on developing a more multi-channel marketing mindset. Right now, too many brokers believe the entire list universe has been shrinking, when only the growth of direct mail-generated names has slowed.

What’s happening is that Internet-sourced data has overtaken public records, directories and direct mail as the primary sources for new lists coming on the market, he explains.

Direct mail-generated list universes are in decline, but not every sector. Counts and the number of postal and e-mail lists in financial services and technology markets, for example, have been growing, he adds.

“There are more lists available today than ever before, but most of it is coming from online (transaction) or survey data,” says Kanter.

How important are list enhancements?

“If co-op lists were so great they’d perform better than individual response lists, says Kanter. Recency, frequency and monetary data still rules.”

Individual lists of direct mail buyers have always generated the best response, he says, compared to enhanced co-op, compiled or Internet-generated lists. “Just like dogs and cats, lists have a pedigree.”

Know someone you’d like to suggest for Meet the Broker? E-mail [email protected]