Meet the Broker: Mark Hammar
Today we meet Mark Hammar, president of Total Data Solutions, a North Andover, MA, company he has owned since 2007.
Before setting up his own shop, he worked for Acxiom and the American List Counsel. And for about 10 years at the height of the dot-com boom, Hammar worked for CMG/MKTG Services (later known as CMGI), a firm that incubated Internet companies such as Lycos.
Hammar brokers a range of business-to-business and business-to-consumer lists, both domestic and international and gets a good chunk of business from agencies.
Like others in the industry, Hammar observes that the job of a list broker today is more difficult than it used to be.
“I’d say for the most part brokers are doing a lot more work,” he says, noting the industry is faced with a lower quality of lists than in the past.
“For example, if you do a search and you’re looking for children, you find stuff like Highlights for Children or Ladybug Magazine, he says. “But then you’ll see a whole bunch of lists that say ‘the great children’s list’ or the ‘fantastic kids list’ and you try to read between the lines about where it came from and you can’t get information on the source.”
Hammar also believes the U.S. Postal Service remains the best way for direct marketers, especially smaller and lesser-known ones to get their messages out.
“I still think [direct mail] is the cheapest way to get stuff across the country,” he says
As for the economy, Hammar reports “we’re definitely getting busier and the pipeline is lot fuller” but activity is still not as high as it was in 2007.
When not working Hammar enjoys running and golf and raising his family of six from his home in Massachusetts.
“They keep me extremely busy,” he says.
