BARLOW: You need to pay for that, though, and nobody wants to be on the bleeding edge of technology.
PAPALIA: I think all of us in this room are still in business because we've gone that extra step. We know the extra buttons to push to make that business happen. Like Deb says, we're innovative in looking at lists, finding selections, enhancing lists, working with mailers to find segments for those people. We do whatever we can do.
ROBERTS: Across the board, the unifying thing clients are looking for is integration. They're not looking for [one] person to do their brokerage, another person to do their management, another to do their transmission and another to do their e-mail. They want somebody who can put all their pieces together for them and they're looking for solutions. What they're looking for is a customer relationship manager who works with them and harnesses all the disparate disciplines in direct marketing to support their goal. Their goal is 'Solve my problems.' [They] need new customers. The bottom line is not all of my [clients] are looking for lists. They're looking for customers.
SCHWARTZ: There's a lot of truth to that. I would say that I always saw myself and my organization as a solutions provider, so from the earliest years I would say something like, 'Well, if you're looking for a mailing list, there's lots of places you can get that. But if you're looking for a marketing consultation, then you're looking for an individualized program. And if you're looking for someone to push this to another level, that's where we come in.
SANCHEZ: I think what's been important is expanding on [our established] clientele. I think if we would have just stuck to a single core competency of, let's say B-to-B catalogs, I think we'd be in a very different place. So we consciously said, 'OK, well, e-mail is going to play out well in the next couple of years. Let's do that.' Business publishing is important to us and we've got the experience, let's expand there. So we've been able to grow by new client acquisition, new services and then also new categories within B-to-B. I think if you look at any group of clients, I think it would be a mixed bag. It's a lot simpler growing a business with your perfect client. Your perfect client does most of the things you tell them, they take your recommendations, you don't have a lot of bureaucracy, they move quick. But your client who has some financial difficulty, you can help them through, they've got some challenges and they're really looking to you to help them build some efficiencies, maybe to keep prospecting rather than cut altogether
SCHWEDELSON: You know, one of the interesting things with the clients, especially those we've had a lot of success with over the past few years, is that on the list management side, [for] those list owners we've done exceptionally well with, we've started playing a bigger role in their overall revenue mix. That changes the dynamic of the relationship. They start looking at this once-passive ancillary revenue stream as a core component of their business. You start entering into meetings with people who don't understand our business, don't understand how growth happens in the list rental space, and they look at it as this exponential situation that's not realistic. And because we've had success, they're expecting dramatic success because some of their other areas, [like] ad pages, are down. It is very, very difficult to manage those expectations. |
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DUNN: Well, most of our revenue still comes from good old list rental. Insofar as our business funnels go, seminars and the Microsofts, they're definitely down, not just on one list but on 200. But banking and credit cards are way up. On the traditional mailers that we've had for two or more years using files, I'd say all in all, business is down. I expect it to cycle back, like the seminar industry goes in and out every 10 years or so. But the whole thing, business finance and credit cards and services are getting more interested. I think the Internet in the long run helped get people into direct marketing, and certainly into business-to-business. So all of our increases, or makeup for loss-we haven't had a big year of increases so far, to he honest- have come from new business and developing new products for that business, creating sub-databases for the business environment that are targeted toward certain industries that are coming into the mail.
CASTLE: What is the most urgent issue of the year for brokers and managers in the B-to-B field?
ROBERTS: Well, I think the most urgent issue for us is how the industry can [implement] an operating system across all the brokerages that will allow us to communicate more efficiently and effectively. It's crazy that I have to key in an order that Deb has already keyed in her system. We're still working by fax. In an Internet age, where everybody is connected, why can't we figure out how to get this problem solved and raise our margins?
CASTLE: We tried this 10 years ago and we almost made it work
SCHWARTZ: Every one of us who has been in this business can look ahead and connect the dots. And those dots take us to a place where we do our research, research generates a recommendation, the recommendation is honed and then narrowed and then the orders are grown out of that and placed with a service bureau for fulfillment, all with one click. And it all happens behind the scenes. And it's not so far away from now that that will happen. But will it all happen as we're all holding hands in the meadow, and all agreeing on the same platforms and systems? No. This is [an] entrepreneurial community, violently independent. I want to do it my way, he wants to do it his way, she wants to do it hers.
SCHWEDELSON: But is that really the biggest problem our industry faces?
SCHWARTZ: If we were to draw some circles on a paper, obviously privacy legislation, politics is a big issue. But I love this issue for a different reason. When pressure was applied to the auto industry [by the government] to achieve emission standards and fuel efficiencies, everyone moaned 'It can't be done.' And today we have 400-horsepower engines out there that are fuel efficient. I think our industry has always faced this challenge, which was 'How do we make this process so simple, so easy that we are in the marketing business and not in the list processing or order processing business?' And with today's technology that has really happened. Now is that the single greatest challenge to us? Maybe not. But it's one of the single greatest opportunities. We are under this microscope and government is saying, 'Hey, we can't catch the bad guys but we know the bad guys are getting names and lists and printing and we know all you guys because you don't move.
GOLDSTEIN: And [they] want to enlist [us] to help find them
SCHWEDELSON: Why did the emissions in all the cars change? They didn't do it because all the automotive dealers got together. They did it because the government forced them. And that's the same thing that is going to happen to this industry. And I think that has massive implications on everything we do, especially
in an election year
Opportunities and Challenges (Cont'd) |
