DMA05 Roundup: What’s New and Noteworthy

Abacus, the Broomfield, CO-based cooperative database services provider, is taking a step to speed up mailing campaigns. At last week’s Direct Marketing Association annual conference in Atlanta, Abacus unveiled FastPath, a solution designed to simplify the mailing development and management process while improving efficiency and return on investment.

How? According to Abacus vice president of marketing Casey Carey, FastPath FastPath integrates a prospect universe from the Abacus Alliance co-op database with Abacus’s DataEDGE list processing capabilities to deliver a mail-ready file in one integrated solution.

Abacus clients submit their house file selects to be modeled against other lists in the co-op. The models used to create the mail file are run net of house file, so there are no dupes, Carey says. Compared with using multiple lists from multiple sources, the time savings with FastPath is significant, he notes: “What used to be a five- to ten-week process is now two weeks.”

Before introducing the service at the DMA show, Abacus tested FastPath with some of its clients, including tools and gifts cataloger/retailer Brookstone. Clients had been telling Abacus they needed improvements in operations efficiencies, Carey says; FastPath is a way to offer “tighter integration with databases between processing.”

Among other products unveiled at the DMA05:

  • Farmingdale, NY-based list services firm 21St Century Marketing introduced a subscription-based service, FirstContact, which offers access to consumers who are about to move. The names and data are culled from consumers responding to print media from 21st’s Century’s client, a national property manager, inquiring about available apartment rentals, for example.
  • Schaumburg, IL-based Experian Marketing Services introduced MarketOne, a new technology platform in beta testing that integrates the company’s capabilities in information, data integrity, targeting, and multichannel communications. Experian reengineered its services into one platform with better accuracy and that is able to grow with the industry, said Rick Erwin, senior vice president marketing and product development. MarketOne will act as a base for all of Experian’s future services and will launch in early 2006.