While the lackluster economy has hurt a number of industries, some are actually thriving. Catalogers that sell general business supplies — office products, lighting, computer hardware, and the like — might do well to consider prospecting to companies in those fields.
Companies in the laboratory research market are a good bet for prospecting, says Mac McIntosh, a North Kingstown, RI-based business-to-business marketing consultant. Thanks to the government funding going into medical research, healthcare, and stem-cell analysis, he says, there’s a lot of buying activity in those markets.
Indeed, at Pearl River, NY-based list firm Edith Roman & Associates, the most frequently rented b-to-b lists include those of pharmaceutical and other healthcare-related companies, says Greg Grdodian, vice president of business-to-business list management. The pharmaceutical industry is on the rise now, he notes, “as many pharmaceutical manufacturing budgets have been increased.”
And with the U.S. on continued high alert, the security manufacturing business is booming. “Any company that makes security systems, metal detectors, lock systems, swipe cards, even name badges, seems to be doing well, and is worth prospecting to,” McIntosh adds. Likewise, as Americans take to “cocooning” — spending more leisure time at home rather than traveling, he says, “companies that make products for the home and sell to builders and the furniture industry are demanding all kinds of general business items.”
But although these and other markets may be doing well overall, “the health of the businesses within such industries can be very disparate,” cautions Steve Horne, president/CEO of New York-based b-to-b customer relationship management and database building consulting firm Analytic-i. “For instance, retailers Walmart and Kmart are certainly in vastly different situations,” he says, referring to Kmart’s recent Chapter 11 filing. “The nature of b-to-b itself is dependent upon the management of individual companies.”
Though catalogers focus on metrics such as repeat buyers, multiple names within companies, titles, industry types, and company sizes when renting lists, “they don’t usually use company financial health measurements,” Horne says. By running lists through financial measurement models, catalogers can nevertheless avoid mailing to companies that aren’t in the financial position to respond to their offers. Such precautions come at a price, of course: The financial data models can cost 10 times more than typical demographic models.
As for the industries that are being hit hard by the economy, McIntosh suggests that mailers think twice before prospecting to energy companies, “because of the Enron mess” and its trickle-down effect on the rest of the energy industry. He’s also wary of prospecting to car companies, “because the automotive industry has been down. Car dealers’ special rebates after Sept. 11 have since cannibalized sales.” Information technology companies were pretty slow through fourth quarter 2001, McIntosh adds, “but are starting to pick up again this year.”