Direct Marketing has seen a good deal of change over the last few years. As online technology continues to evolve, procurement of information becomes quicker and easier. Over the next few weeks I will overview three major changes that have changed how many companies are approaching their direct program.

In this post I will discuss the ability to selectively grow your database and approach prospects, future posts will focus on Co-Registration and Post Click Marketing.

Purchasing one name at a time:
If you’ve spent time planning or managing direct marketing programs then you’ve probably been up against minimums of 5,000, 7,500 or even 10,000 names. Or maybe you have leaned more towards the compiled (multi-sourced) list solutions that require monetary minimums. In a previous post I focused on getting the most out of these minimums, but what if you didn’t have to deal with them at all? What if you could log on and grab one or two names at a time?...You Can.

Here is the scenario, you would like to approach a company and you don’t know the name of the contact(s), but you know the title(s) which would be ideal. demandbase offers the opportunity to grab one name at a time, just like you were purchasing a song off of iTunes. What makes this service so valuable is that within a few minutes you can have the contact information you are looking for. Just select the company and the job title and voila, there’s your name.

Imagine giving your sales force the ability to grab the name they need at the time they need it. The great part is that there is no commitment, so go ahead and keep your current provider of sales leads, but when they can’t come through, here’s an excellent alternative.
   
As you probably guessed, the names will cost you more per name than if you were to buy in bulk. But really, the cost is not significant enough to deter regular use of this technology. Is ~$2 per name unreasonable for complete contact information (often including email) of a prospect from a company who has been repeatedly surfing your site? You decide, give it a try and let me know what you think.