To recruit for his 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Sir Ernest Shackleton placed the following advertisement in a London newspaper:
"Men wanted: for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."
Shackleton's offer was not very enticing, to say the least, but he certainly understood his target audience and his need for others to be equipped for the journey.
Although streamlining the mailing list acquisition process is not worthy of comparison with Shackleton's initiative, there is a leadership lesson to be learned from his recruitment effort — you don't go alone. Fortunately, for us and our clients, we have much better odds today than Sir Ernest did in 1914.
In addition to the 250+ industry leaders who recently joined the NextMark groups on LinkedIn and Plaxo, a select few also joined NextMark's advisory board to provide counsel and feedback on a present initiative to bridge the gap between data cards and data. This effort will also be focused on streamlining the count request process as shown below:
The group's responses are encouraging:
"Cross Country Computer is very excited to be part of the NextMark Select initiative. As data geeks and technology lovers, we always want to be on the forefront of innovation. NextMark Select will help the list industry improve communications, resources and turnaround — and ultimately improve ROI," said Nora Brophy, Vice President of Business Development at Cross Country Computer.
"NextMark is once again leading the charge to streamline the direct marketing process online. Their innovative bridge between data cards and data will allow marketing professionals to obtain pertinent information at lightning speed — thus saving time and money. Most importantly, this new technology allows marketing professionals to gain more control over the deliverability of data," said David Dotson, Managing Partner at ALC.
"NextMark is taking a leadership position on an initiative that has great potential for the direct marketing industry. It's great to do business with a company that places such high value on innovation, collaboration and customer service," noted Mary Miller, Director of Marketing at dm2 Decisionmaker.
"The list industry has been aching for efficiency for years. Cross Country Computer is proud to be a part of this initiative to provide an infrastructure that allows the brokerage community to serve their clients more effectively, and gives list managers the ability to focus more on cross/up-sell opportunities and less on paper-shuffling," said Greg Jarrow, Manager of Business Development at Cross Country Computer.
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The following individuals added valuable, empirical insight to the development of an integrated count request engine for next generation direct marketing:
Nora Brophy, Vice President of New Business Development, Cross Country Computer
David Dotson, Managing Partner, ALC
Denise Hubbard, Director of Sales and Marketing, Specialized Fundraising Services
Greg Jarrow, Manager of New Business Development, Cross Country Computer
Heather Maylander, Managing Director, Lake Group Media
Mary Miller, Director of Marketing, dm2 Decisionmaker
Joanne Petrone, Controller, Blue Hill Marketing
Mike Reckinger, Vice President, ALC DataCentrix
Jerry Reisberg, Vice President of Business Development, MCH, Inc.
Joe Robinson, Senior Vice President, Lake Group Media
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The NextMark executive team would like to thank these individuals for their contributions towards bridging the gap between 60,000 data cards and the data. Check out the following video on the YouTube 'findlists' channel for a sneak preview of what is to come: