MeritDirect will be gaining more than a file of 5.5 million postal names, 2.1 million e-mail names, 4.1 million telemarketing names, 400,000 international contacts and a database of 135,000 trade show attendees when it assumes management duties of Penton Media’s lists on April 1. It will be gaining a business partner.
This partnership will enable sales representatives from each company to offer what Warren Bimblick, Penton’s senior VP of strategy and business development, called “traditional as well as modern list rental.
“If MeritDirect representatives have a client not endemic to us, such as a broad mailer who wants to market across our file, they will bring us in to help develop content and programs,” Bimblick said. “Similarly, Penton salespeople will be able to look at the file demographics [which will be created by MeritDirect] and develop very targeted programs for their clients that enhance our normal offerings.”
MeritDirect salespeople will share Penton booth space at a variety of trade shows and expositons, Bimblick added.
“As a list manager, you can’t just sell the list to traditional markets and expect to keep up with the revenue demands of your client,” said Rob Sanchez, president of the list management and interactive services unit at MeritDirect. “We are going to be focusing a lot on selling to the brokerage community and direct marketing community, as well as ad agencies.”
Look for Penton’s sales team to dip into the database as well, especially on very small-run campaigns. According to Bimblick, reps will be able to delve into the database and come up with highly targeted lists, which then have editorial products, such as reprint packages, tailored for them as part of an outreach campaign.
“Increasingly marketers are looking at the most efficient returns, and that gets to targeting the most appropriate people rather than looking at a small percentage of a large campaign,” Bimblick said.
The move to MeritDirect will facilitate microtargeting, especially as Penton’s files are augmented with overlay data. MeritDirect has access to a number of compiled files, as well as its own branded sources, said Sanchez, who anticipates greater coverage in the file’s firmagraphics once his company starts adding information.
MeritDirect has staffed up in anticipation of receiving the Penton files. The company has hired a handful of new account executives, and will ultimately have between eight and ten full-time employees servicing it.
All this is not to say Penton is completely breaking with infoGroup, whose Walter Karl division previously managed its lists. The company will still use Yesmail for its e-mail broadcast operations. Bimblick added that Penton may be moving to Yesmail’s enterprise solution.
For additional information from MeritDirect, please contact Chris Blohm at 914.368.1031 or visit http://www.meritdirect.com/penton.
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