Today we meet Jerry Connaughton, an account executive with MKTG Services. Like many brokers he also has list management experience. He began his career at Media Marketplace, the forerunner of MKTG Services. Next, he spent about 10 years working in marketing for printing and fulfillment companies, before joining MKTG.
“I’ve been in brokerage now about three years,” Connaughton said. “It’s almost all consumer lists. The majority of my work involves publishing and fundraising.”
He provides list brokerage services for the Saturday Evening Post, Civil War Preservation Trust and Diabetic Cooking magazine.
Connaughton is curious to see how the recent postage increase affects direct marketing in the long run. He’s optimistic that the list business will continue growing, but at a slower pace than past years.
“A lot of people are concerned that we’ll soon start seeing the impact on invoices if mailers scale back. Personally, I think it’s going to affect fundraising more. I think business (for commercial mailers) has been picking up after a period of decline. Mailing volumes have been going up,” Connaughton said.
Away from his workday routine, he enjoys visiting the Jersey Shore in the summertime with his family. He and his wife have a boy, 6, and a girl, 4. Connaughton coaches his son’s Little League team and describes himself as a loyal fan of Philadelphia’s sports teams. He spends spare time listening to Black Sabbath and other heavy metal music.
What changed between the time you left and when you returned to the list business?
Relationships between brokers and managers have become much less personal, as e-mail has significantly reduced the amount of time spent talking on the phone.
“We live by e-mail now. It used to be nonstop phone calls and I’m not saying that was a bad thing. You’d get to know people. We should get back to that a little more,” said Connaughton.
It’s become more competitive, especially among companies offering compiled data. “There are a lot more compiled lists on the market now, but a lot of it is the same data,” he added.
More specifically, the print magazine market and list counts have shrunk as more people have turned to the Internet for information, which makes it more challenging for brokers to find and recommend lists.
Consequently, he favors direct-to-publisher sourced files to lift response rates. He looks for alternatives such as files offered by organizations targeting a similar audience and finds he has to dig deeper into files using selections.
Can you talk about a goal as a list broker?
“I’m looking to diversify into more market categories,” Connaughton said. “The first thing that’s necessary is understanding the business and then building rapport.”
Brokers can leverage relationships with list management clients to acquire new brokerage business. Likewise, networking at conferences and passing out business cards are necessary legwork, but it all takes a determined effort, he pointed out.
Even setting aside a small amount of time daily for making cold calls to find new clients pays off over a period of weeks
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