Broker Roundtable: Has Datacard Quality Improved?
Welcome to Broker Roundtable, where each week we ask list brokers to give their opinions on issues that matter to the marketing community. This week’s question: How much has the quality of datacards improved in recent years? In what areas are they still lacking?
Our current panel includes Price Anderson of DirectMail.com, Patricia Leone of Leon Henry Inc., Michael Peterman of Veradata and Michele Volpe of Media Source Solutions. Would you like to be considered to be a member of our roundtable? Contact Larry Riggs ([email protected].)
Price Anderson, vice president, sales and marketing, DirectMail.com:
Datacards have not changed much over the past few years. That said, more and more list managers have recognized that they can reduce the number of counts they are running by including more information about how the list is sourced as well as by including counts for specific selects right on the datacard. Some managers have even improved the accessibility of usage reports by allowing you to simply click a button on their website to view continuing usage. These extra steps allow brokers to quickly pick and reject lists before putting in detailed count requests.
As brokers, we find the search engines we use continue to struggle to keep their information updated. Often, we must do the initial research on the search engines then resort to double checking” pricing and availability by going to the individual list manager websites or emailing them directly. This extra step continues to be a necessary evil to avoid giving clients old information.
Patricia Leone, senior account executive, Leon Henry Inc.:
I think that, in general, datacards have vastly improved. Providers like NextMark and Standard Rate and Data Service have allowed managers to include an immense amount of data (including counts by source, product and dollar as well as detailed usage) that can be updated within minutes. Links to the managers’ websites and account executives’ email addresses make it very easy to gather or request whatever additional information is needed quickly.
Michael Peterman, CEO, Veradata:
I do not think the quality of datacards has seen much of an improvement at all. The biggest challenge with datacards is the sheer quantity of “wanna-be” specialty lists. There are thousands of datacards on NextMark that are nothing more than lipstick on a pig; compiled data with attribute selections made by a list broker and a nice narrative describing the audience. It’s not always easy to determine what is a real list of direct response buyers/subscribers/members. Because it is free to post datacards, there is no “cost of entry” or other deterrents to stop the endless stream of prose being manufactured by brokers disguising compiled data as a direct response list. The reality is, truly managed lists most often outperform compiled data. The systems today, I think, should have a barrier to entry or some quality control measure to ensure that the datacard is what it represents itself to be. Sure, you can look at “source,” but that isn’t monitored either. It is self selected. So, as in most everything, caveat emptor. It would be nice to have a source for managed lists that was representative of only true managed lists. All searches would be simpler and the time spent assembling recommendations would be more efficient.
Michele Volpe, vice president of sales and marketing, Media Source Solutions:
Thanks to NextMark, I believe the quality of datacards has improved significantly over the past few years. NextMark has in a way taken over as benevolent watchdog and monitors every one of the datacards in its database. They evaluate the quality of the datacards based on several factors. Each factor carries a different weight. Based on the overall score, the card is assigned an A, B, C and so on. Every quarter NextMark issues a Datacard Quality Report. It’s critical to keep your datacards up-to-date, written in a clear, concise, factual manner and presented in an appealing way to entice brokers to recommend the list to their mailers. Sourcing is very important as is usage. If that information was included on the datacards that would save countless phone calls, faxes and emails. Listing all the selects and other data costs is also an area that is lacking. I feel if these issues could be addressed, we would all be able to do our jobs more effectively.
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