Participants:
- Tim Barlow, vice president, list services group, VentureDirect Worldwide
- Bob Castle, marketing consultant
- Lynne Decker, vice president, list management, Rubin Response
- Stephen T. Dunn, president, Mal Dunn Associates
- Deb Goldstein, president, IDG List Services
- John Papalia, president/chief executive officer, Statlistics
- Stevan Roberts, CEO, Edith Roman Associates and ePost Direct
- Rob Sanchez, senior vice president, list management/interactive services, MeritDirect
- David O. Schwartz, president, 21st Century Marketing
- Jay Schwedelson, corporate vice president, Worldata
Like their consumer colleagues, business-to-business list professionals see lots of opportunities for growth, even though mailers have to be cautious about obstacles like Can Spam. In Direct’s B-to-B list roundtable, participants talked about how their industry has expanded by evolving and going that extra step to serve clients. There was a healthy sense of competition in the room, but an overwhelming feeling that everyone needs to work together to survive.
CASTLE: How is business now in the B-to-B field and what do you expect to see in the next year?
DUNN: There are a lot of opportunities and challenges in terms of pulling data together so we can go deeper and help businesses get more information more quickly. If I were a young man entering the direct marketing field, I’d want to be on the B-to-B side. There’s a lot more room for growth, the margins are a lot better and it’s a better place to be.
SCHWEDELSON: We are definitely seeing a lot of growth, especially over the course of the next 12 to 24 months, based on what a lot of mailers are telling us. We’re really starting to see some of those mailers in categories that had not been doing so well
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