Mokrynski & Associates Inc

The news of infoUSA’s acquisition of Direct Media sent the combined reaction of total expectation and shock waves throughout the catalog/multichannel list industry. My own opinion is that this deal was to be expected considering the path that infoUSA has been going in recent years. Direct Media joins the infoUSA stable that contains Millard Group (including its most recent pick-up, Mokrynskidirect), Edith Roman, Rubin Response, Walter Karl, JAMI Marketing Services and American Church Lists. Then again, it’s a little surprising considering that Direct Media was sold to Acxiom nearly 12 years ago, only for Direct Media’s management team to buy the company back four

CONSUMER Motley Fool Champion Funds The Motley Fool Champion Funds file is comprised of 5,336 investors looking for information and guidance on mutual fund investing. They’ve paid an annual average of $149 to read up on building long-term wealth. The base list price is $200/M. MetaResponse Group, (954) 360-0644, www.metaresponse.com. KooKoo Bear Kids KooKoo Bear Kids offers its 26,500 12-month buyers a fanciful assortment of children’s furniture, bedding and accessories designed as if from a child’s point of view. These catalog buyers primarily are women. They have an average age of 37 and an average household income of $175,000. The base

“List universes have shrunk, no doubt about it. And the economic climate is tougher than it has been in years for many catalogers, especially smaller niche titles like Design Toscano,” says Erik Martinez, the catalog’s vice president of marketing and information technology. So for Design Toscano, a home furnishings cataloger based near Chicago, looking for prospect lists with similar affinities is like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack. Where have all the good prospect lists gone? “Some catalogs went under, while others responded to the economic climate by expanding into broader merchandise offerings,” Martinez notes. “That doesn’t help us, because

Rising postage costs and shrinking list universes haven’t made customer acquisition any easier in recent years. Faced with such obstacles, catalogers increasingly are turning to insert media programs as a means to grow their housefiles. But like any growing market, both solid strategies and pitfalls abound. How can you best prepare for a successful insert media campaign? Consider the following do’s and don’ts. Do identify your target audience. “Insert media is not as easily targetable as list media, because in most cases you can’t select [recipient categories] within the program,” acknowledges Amy Benewicz, former vice president of The Catamount Group, a Bethel, Conn.-based direct

Don Mokrynski, chairman of Mokrynski & Associates and this year’s List Leader of the Year, talks about trends to watch in catalog lists and database marketing It’s been 26 years since Don Mokrynski founded the Hackensack, N.J.-based list brokerage and management company that bears his name, and he is one who has remained at the forefront of his industry every step of the way. Indeed, The Direct Marketing Association’s List and Database Council recently presented Mokrynski with its DMA List Leader of the Year Award. Catalog Success contributing writer Alicia Orr Suman spoke to Mokrynski a few days before he accepted the

A weakened U.S. dollar, the presence of global traffic on U.S. Web sites and a competitive domestic market with little room for growth have combined to pique U.S. catalogers’ interest in overseas markets. Adapting your catalog for an international market often involves rewriting and translating copy into a foreign language, pricing in local currency, and offering customers the ability to pay in their local currencies. “All of this requires a significant investment of time and money, and very rarely do catalogers make this type of investment for a test,” says Mark Bridges, vice president and director of the international division of Mokrynski &

More and more catalogers are finding that package insert programs (PIPs) are good ways to generate ancillary income. After all, you’re going to ship the customer a package anyway, and as long as the package weight remains the same, why not drop in a few complementary offers from other merchants? To be successful, however, the offers you select have to align well with your brand. Two catalogers who accept package inserts shared their experiences and insights with Donna Loyle, editor in chief of Catalog Success. Jeffrey Nissim, president, Musical Heritage Society, Oakhurst, NJ What they sell: CDs of jazz and classical music,

Today’s multichannel merchants continually are searching for viable channel-integration solutions — a seamless blend across the key points of customer interaction, including catalogs, Web sites, retail stores and kiosks. “Providing seamless integration communicates a consistent message to consumers and results in higher transaction values,” note the authors of the LakeWest Group’s Fifth Annual POS Benchmarking Survey 2004. But as most catalogers will tell you, achieving that seamless blend across all sales channels is more difficult than it appears to be. Following are a few tactics that can help you make the most of all of your channel-integration intiatives. 1. Take advantage

Anything is negotiable when it comes to list rentals, according to list professionals such as Karen Mayhew, vice president, consumer list management, at Direct Media. “Today, there’s not really anything that’s out of the question,” she explains. Mayhew’s colleague on the list brokerage side at Direct Media, Linda Huntoon, executive vice president, agrees. “If you can think of something that will help a mailer use a file and can explain it to the manager and [list] owner, you can probably test it.” Other list professionals also see an upswing in list negotiations. Dennis Bissig, group vice president/brokerage, Mokrynski & Associates, says: “There are a

Ever get the feeling you keep mailing to the same people over and over again? Don’t worry, you’re not alone—you’re just a catalog marketer at the end of the 20th century. The most profitable names out there have always been multi-buyers who are responsive to catalog offers. So you and your direct, as well as indirect, competitors are bumping into each other by mailing the same names. Uncovering new sources of names or putting a fresh spin on the less obvious prospects requires some elbow grease and creative thinking. Be willing to learn a lot about your current customers and to explore some unusual