NextMark

List Leaders Speak From The Heart

The DMA Fast Forward Conference ended with a heartfelt message this evening from the 2008 List Leader of the Year award recipient. After a long day of strategic thinking and challenges from experts outside of the list business, it was refreshing to hear words of wisdom and optimism from Linda Huntoon, Executive Vice President of Consumer List Brokerage for Direct Media, Inc. The industry veteran was honored by her peers, family and friends for an unwavering commitment to her clients and to the list and data marketing industry. Her acceptance speech reminded list professionals, young and old, that the customer is king and exceptional service is key to sustaining a healthy business regardless of the media or response channels you support. Undoubtedly, the industry has survived and will continue to thrive with added value and measurable results.

The 2008 Ron Davis Young List Professional of the Year was awarded to Tim Hickman of American List Counsel, Inc. Tim hit the ground running in ALC's Data Management Division with a remarkable attitude. At times, it seemed like he was having more fun selling segments and selects than sipping suds on a Saturday night. Tim found joy in helping his coworkers, clients and customers throughout the day regardless of the problem at hand. This rising star finds a way to get the job done and have fun doing it -- and he makes everyone around him just feel good.

And there was Scott Chilcutt, whose industry contributions required the introduction of a new award -- the Industry Innovation Award. A few seasoned list industry veterans put Scott's contributions in the context of list marketing circa 1989 when list marketing information was only to be found on paper, in proprietary databases, or in an SRDS book. That was the same time when marketing INFORMATION network began with three employees, no clients, and Scott's vision for the future of list research and recommendations. The vision was realized with an electronic standardized data card database that replaced internal data card compilation tasks with top shelf data, world-class service, and added value for list brokers and their clients. Scott now heads up the mIn Strategic Business Unit for NextMark, Inc. providing services to include search engine optimization and advertising for list managers, as well as fully-integrated list order processing solutions for all direct marketers.

Each award recipient spoke from the heart with words of integrity that clearly revealed their character. Congratulations Linda, Tim and Scott on your achievements and for making our not so little world of lists a better place to work!

Thinking 'Outside The Box of Chocolates'

Is this 'BlackBerry' flavored brandy or branding?

Moms, don't be surprised if you receive a handheld device for Mother's Day this year. Godiva mobile is thinking outside the box of chocolates "to provide BlackBerry users with access to Godiva products anytime, anywhere." My momma always said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." Kudos to the world famous chocolatier for thinking outside the box on this one -- and added praise for program implementation.

What are direct marketing services providers doing to think outside the box? I've been thinking a lot about the highly correlated lists feature that is available in the public domain, and wondering how much it is being leveraged. If Godiva can find a relationship between the cell phone and the truffle, then I'm sure that we can find some pretty good matches within the data card universe.

Take a look at the Godiva mailing list and you'll see that there are a few highly correlated list titles that might work for you during a time when oil prices and economic concerns are weakening consumer confidence.

Names from lists that are highly correlated to chocoholism may not be the answer for you, but this list peformance feature may help you replenish your creativity. Grab a truffle while you're at it.

mIn Data And Maximum Value

Since 1989, marketing INFORMATION network (mIn) has built its reputation on providing exceptional data quality backed by world-class customer service. For nearly two decades, the mIn data has been used by thousands of direct marketing professionals to provide their clients with quality list recommendations for new customer acquisition. This has lead to millions of list rental continuation orders and customer success stories.

With the turn of the new millenimum, NextMark began the development of integrated solutions for streamlining the direct marketing process. More time became available for providing value-added services like campaign management, response analysis, sales and marketing as NextMark users embraced the new technology. Recommendations containing hundreds of list titles and data cards were a mouse click away from being instantly converted to orders. Finance was integrated with order processing, while DMAX enabled the sharing of purchase order information between list brokers and list managers. If only the best of both worlds were combined, then we'd have something REALLY exciting to talk about!

Well, the time has finally come for maximizing the value of mIn data and NextMark's integrated direct marketing solutions. Effective May 1, 2008, NextMark and marketing INFORMATION network have joined forces to create a unified organization dedicated to the future of the list industry. This is not only a big win for data quality across the board, but also a stepping stone for future innovations. Solidifying the core list research database is a critical step in moving forward with development initiatives that will reduce costs and alleviate complexities related to the process of new customer acquisition. Furthermore, list managers will benefit from search engine optimized platforms designed to reach the next generation of direct marketers. Stay tuned -- there's more good news to come!

TGIF Advertising - Dip Into The Down Time

I'm so glad it's Friday! Is that just because you are ready to crash from a long week of problem solving and managing expectations? Or is Friday the only business day when you are able to carve out some time to do what you do best? After speaking with a few list brokers, I believe we've got something in common here.

"There is no better day than Friday when it comes to doing list research," according to Donna Belardi, President of Belardi/Ostroy ALC. "I've been making new test recommendations for 20 years, and the best ones are created on the days with the least interruptions."

Rather than rely soley on insights from industry veterans, take a look at some recent results from the NextMark Contextually Targeted Advertising Program. As indicated in the following graph, there is little variation between business days in regards to the number of impressions. The coefficient of variation for impressions is only 10 percent. What does that mean? Simply stated, about 90 percent of the search activity is consistent throughout the week.

Therefore, it makes more sense to look at the number of firms who are advertising on a given weekday and target your audience when your message will stand out the best.

If you're wondering about click-through rates, then take a look at the next graph. The number of data card pageviews, for the same list management advertising campaign, reflects a similar pattern. The coefficient of variation is a little higher at 12 percent, but that is insufficient to disprove the hypothesis that Friday's are not so bad after all. So what's the take-away in all of this? How should this affect my advertising decisions when the reality is that Monday through Friday are 'almost' (10 - 12 percent) equal in regards to reaching my target audience of list brokers?

Again, all you need to do is look at the when your competitors are advertising and promote your list titles on the days of the week when your message will stand out the best.

For some reason, list managers seem to prefer Wednesday for search engine marketing -- at least with NextMark. Surprisingly, only a few have decided to avoid the traffic and stand out in the crowd. Why would this be happening? Although we've consistently shared this message with list managers, we just recently ran the numbers to back it up. We wanted to wait until we had a valid test sample to do that properly. Now that we've quantified a few of our assumptions, it's time to spread the word.

List research is happening Monday through Friday with little variation, so spend your list marketing ad dollars wisely and take advantage of the open opportunities while they last. Based on this simple study, you might want test your next campaign on a Friday. I'm so confident that this will work for you that I'll guarantee it. If you sign up for NextMark's Contextually Targeted Advertising Program and do not get at least 1,000 top ranked impressions on at least one given Friday (holidays excluded), then I will personally send you a $100 gift card to T.G.I. Fridays. Either way, you'll be able to 'Dip Into The Down Time'.

Fed Credit Plan – Dow Dope or False Hope?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) posted its biggest gain in five years Tuesday, noted Matt Krantz of USA Today in his March 12, 2008 article titled “Stocks soar as central banks act; Dow back above 12K”. This move was obviously praised by investors, due to the respective gains of $600 billion in shareholder value in a single day! Furthermore, it eases the burden on the credit market by enabling the exchange of mortgages and bonds for government securities. That in itself is not a bad thing, because investment is discouraged when the reins are held too tight. But looks can be deceiving when the Fed interferes.

Take a step back, look at all of the spikes during the past six months, overlay a simple linear regression line, and give yourself a taste for where we could be heading. Always put short-term gains in the context of macroeconomic trends (see graph). A true market reversal will take more than the shifting of risk from commercial to government institutions. It will require fiscal accountability at all levels, corporately and individually, and it includes all of us in the direct marketing community. Direct marketing is famous for surviving the tough times because it’s measurable. We are great at doing the response analysis for our clients, but let's never forget the importance of measuring our own internal return on investment (ROI) for list advertising and list order processing solutions.

In contrast to best practices for direct marketing, many list managers and list owners spend millions (in aggregate) on mailing list advertising programs that are unmeasurable, and even more on labor and resource intensive order processing systems. Far to much of our contribution margins are wasted on redundant tasks that add little or no value to the customer acquisition process. Here's the good news. Unlike the current macroeconomic trends, these direct marketing habits can be overcome quickly, and with lasting benefits.

No time to learn about the system? Check this out....

As part of our program to improve customer service we have created an online video training offering.

Dubbed NextMark Video Tutorials or "NVT's" these videos are geared to help users learn more about the system at their own pace.  In the past we have offered bulk trainings with mixed success due to the varied skill sets and levels of experience of the attendees.  These video tutorials provide each user a self-service training capability.  Users can scroll forward and backward through the tutorials, skip uneccesary sections or even pause the tutorial and come back to it later when it is more convenient for them.

So far we have produced 5 video tutorials(well 6 if you included the tutorial on the tutorials)  ranging from searching for lists to managing your leads generated by public data card sites.  Please take a look, we hope you find them helpful.

 
• Tips for using NextMark Video Tutorials (length 0:19)
 
• Searching for Data Cards, performing list research (length 11:05)
 
• Creating and managing campaigns (aka data card packets) (length 10:38)
 
• Update Profile, change your personal settings & password (length 2:45)
 
• Leads Handling, Processing an incoming lead (length 4:09)
 
• Leads Administration, Setup budgets and bidding (length 5:23)

In the coming months we will be rolling out more of these tutorials for different parts of the system so stay tuned!

We are always looking for ways to improve our service to our customers and would love to hear from you.  If you have a login, simply click on the "Help" link in the top right corner of the screen.  If you don't have a login, feel free to send an email to us at support@nextmark.com.

Would You Serve A T-Bone On A Trash Can Lid?

Of course not (maybe to a junk yard dog), but I'm not sure everyone thinks this way when it comes to data cards. The t-bone steak represents the winning combination of a world-class list manager and a quality mailing list with an exceptional test-to-continuation ratio. The trash can lid represents a neglected data card for that same mailing list. Take a step back and embrace this analogy from the perspective of a list broker or mailer. You select your favorite list research tool from the browser-- we'll use the Mailing List Search Tool for this example, since that is a free tool in the public domain. Here's what happens:

You find a brand name mailing list of active subscribers that matches your customer profile. This mailing list is marketed by a credible list management firm with superior industry knowledge, a proven track record for customer service, and a diverse portfolio of top notch response list titles. Futhermore, the mailing list you selected is known for its success in delivering above average response rates with consistently high payup rates. Now you are ready to add this list title to your client's new test recommendation, but you notice that the data card has not been reviewed in over a year. Needless to say, you're likely to question the validity of the information. You may wonder if the mailing list is still available for rental, or you may find out that the owner of the data card is no longer the list manager because they lost the business to a competitor and never deactivated their version of the data card. That's obviously not something the former list manager would want to promote in the public domain, but it happens every day!

What's the take-away in all of this? It's simple. Keep your data cards up-to-date with quality information on all of the list research channels, especially in the public domain where your content is most visible. You are able to publish and maintain your data cards online for free using MarketMax SE, and those cards will be updated instantly on all of the following list research portals in the public domain:

The DMA (Direct Marketing Association), Direct Magazine, Multi-Channel Merchant, NextMark, Salesforce.com, and Kodak!

At the same time, your data cards will be updated for all of NextMark's list research and list brokerage system users, representing 185 companies who acquire mailing lists for new customer acquisition.

Finally, if you'd like NextMark can integrate your website so you only need to update your data cards in one place -- NextMark will take care of the rest. Is there any better way for you to gain control over the process? It's time to serve those data cards 'well-done' and get noticed for your efforts! 

Curmudgeon of data cards?

We recently announced NextMark Reveals Top 50 List Managers, which describes a new Data Card Quality Report that we just started publishing.  In the February 22, 2008 edition of Direct ListLine, it was reported:

"NextMark Inc. has appointed itself as curmudgeon to take list management companies to task for poorly written data cards.

"Nextmark has released a report ranking the top 50 list management companies based on its analysis of quality of their data cards. It plans to release more quarterly reports to monitor signs of improvement, with its next report due out in April."

Curmudgeon?  According to the Wiktionary, a curmudgeon is "an ill-tempered (and frequently old) person full of stubborn ideas or opinions."  I am not sure that I like that descriptor.

However, I will admit we are certainly stubborn and opinionated about one thing: data card quality.  Without good data cards, you can't make good mailing list purchasing decisions.  Without good mailing lists, your direct marketing campaigns will fail.  When your programs fail, you miss your revenue goals and waste time and money. So, yes, it's our stubborn opinion that data cards should be top quality.

The purpose of the Data Card Quality Report is to identify and reward those list managers who are doing a great job for their clients -- mailers, list brokers, and list owners.  They get to show a NextMark "seal of approval" (see graphic above) on their website and in marketing promotions.  It's a nice reward for those putting in a solid effort.

For those not on the Top 50 List who want to be... you get all the tools and resources you need through our free data card publishing tool.  Yes, the tools are completely free (this report is not a roundabout way of selling products).  If you are not already using it, sign up today and get started with your "data card makeover."

We'll be publishing quarterly updates to the Data Card Quality Report.  In future updates, we'll indicate "most improved" companies.  So, now is your opportunity to both break into the top 50 and be the most improved.

The bottom line goal of this report and other initiatives is to improve data card quality. I hope you agree that's a worthwhile pursuit!

Hillary Clinton and infoUSA railroaded by NPR

In yesterday's All Things Considered program on National Public Radio (NPR), they aired a story "Clinton's InfoUSA Ties Scrutinized."  As a fan of NPR, I was greatly disturbed by the sloppy reporting on this piece.  It seems to me someone (or group of someones) is out to get Hillary and/or infoUSA and fed NPR the story but did not give them good leads to follow up on their facts.

The purpose of this story is to correct the mistakes NPR made in their story where they reported that Hillary Clinton's campaign is selling their mailing list to infoUSA. 

First and foremost, the Hillary Clinton's mailing list is not on the market.  If it were, we would know about it because we maintain the most comprehensive database of mailing lists available.  A hot list like that would surely take notice and our clients (some of whom work for various political campaigns) would demand we track it down if we did not have it already. There are certainly a number of Hillary-related lists on the market, but none of them are sourced from her campaign.  You can see for yourself by searching on "hillary" with the mailing lists search tool on our website here: http://lists.nextmark.com/.

In case you are wondering, NextMark does not endorse Hillary but rather supports all candidates and a fair democratic process.  Our tools are used by all political parties to reach voters that are sympathetic to their cause.  So, I am not coming to her defense because of a personal agenda.  But I feel obligated to call out what appears to be an underhanded campaign trick and a misrepresentation of the business.

Second, although not as significant as the first, the information they reported about the alleged transaction was inaccurate.

The average cost to rent a mailing list is around $1,500.  This fact is sourced from the 20,000 list orders that run through our system every month.  In their story, NPR's sources claim that a price of $8,225 was unusually low.  That price seems reasonable to me.  It all depends on the number of names rented.  A typical mailing list will cost around $100/M (per thousand) for a one-time anonymous rental and that rate will be discounted by volume.  The so-called expert in the article said the list should go for $800,000 -- that person is misinformed.  If you do the math, that would indicate a rental of at least 8,000,000 names.  Unless a credit card company was doing the rental, I highly doubt you would find an extraordinarily large transaction like that.

The NPR reports "But most intriguing of all was the renter of the Clinton list: a list brokerage company that is a subsidiary of one of the data-collection industry titans, Info U.S.A."  infoUSA is the biggest company in the business and they are involved in a very significant percentage of transactions -- by some estimates they are involved with more than 20% of the transactions either buying or selling -- so it's not surprising at all that they would be involved with at least one transaction with any given mailing list.  In fact, it would be more surprising if they were not involved in some of the transactions.

The Clinton campaign denied these allegations by responding that "lists were rented out by her 2006 Senate campaign committee — and that the rentals took place before she began her formal campaign for president last January."  NPR casts doubt on this response by saying "That would mean the rental fees went unpaid for at least 11 months. Starke, the analyst, cites Info U.S.A. data showing that on average, it settles accounts within 64 days."

The list rental business is a crazy business when it comes to the collections process.  As the list broker, infoUSA would not be directly on the hook to pay the rental fee on time unless it had signed a letter of guarantee, which would be unusual for such an established company.  Instead, it would be the mailer that infoUSA was representing that would be on the hook for the payment.  When the mailer paid infoUSA, then infoUSA would turn around and pay the list owner, which in this case was the Clinton campaign.  If the mailer was slow in paying (perhaps a bankrupt political campaign?), then the list owner would be slow in getting paid.

So, although it's unusual to wait 11 months to get paid, I find it very plausible that one transaction in all their transactions they do would take that long.  Again, I would find it more surprising if they did not have at least one deadbeat customer in all the customers they serve.

As far as the shareholder issues, that's not my area of expertise so I won't comment on that other than to say that's an old story that keeps getting dug up.

Finally, I should mention that infoUSA is a customer of NextMark's just like most other companies in the business of buying or selling mailing lists.  I felt obligated to write this story on behalf of the entire industry because there is a general misunderstanding about how this business works and this story by NPR is just the latest of many stories that misrepresent the way that mailing lists work.  Although it might be too much to hope for, it would be nice for once to read about how mailing lists are used for good -- such as how they helped a new business get off the ground or how it helped a non-profit organization to raise the funds it needed to find a cure for cancer.

New Belardi Ostroy Mailing List Search Tool

Belardi Ostroy just launched a new mailing list search tool on their website, which was implemented using NextMark's MarketMax Pro Service.  They successfully manage more than 250 mailing lists including some of the most popular on the market such as Cooking Light, Hammacher Schlemmer, Lillian Vernon and Sierra Trading Post.  Belardi Ostroy is one of the best list companies in the industry and we're proud to count them among our clients!