Q&A Witih Joann Kropp, VP Customer Data Solutions, Penton

Penton renews focus on custom marketing solutions with new hire.

By Bill Mickey
Wednesday, December 3, 2008

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In October, Penton announced it hired Joann Kropp into the newly created position of VP, customer data solutions. Kropp will be responsible for building revenues through lists and “name-based” products across the company. As the former president of the Walter Karl division of infoUSA, Kropp says she’ll leverage her direct marketing background into the new position. It’s essentially a lead-gen business, but one in which Kropp will be able to help advertising customers build targeted and segmented programs off of their own data, as well as Penton’s.

What will you be doing for Penton?

I’m going to be working directly with customers—advertisers—at Penton. We have 6 million subscribers and 114 publications in 30 industries, so it’s quite a reach. I’m going to be working with the customers to offer as fully an integrated marketing solution for their needs as possible. It’s leveraging our expertise in their industry. I have a direct marketing background that I’ll be bringing to the table.

How will that help?

It can help the customer understand how they can grow their business through email marketing or through segmenting their own customer files and help them identify new prospects or new lead generation programs. We know, for example, the financial services space very well and we can help them with marketing tactics to help them grow their business.

Can you give me an idea of what you mean by integrated marketing solutions?

Print, online, a roundtable session, so any media, any face-to-face marketing, any multichannel approach. We’ll help them understand the value of when they should call, email, or mail and any combination of those three. We’ll also help them understand more about their own customers.

What kind of data resources are at your fingertips to leverage?

We have 6 million subscribers. We have self-reported surveys they complete so they qualify for the magazine, and we know the industry they’re in, information they want to hear about, and so on.

Do you expect to be able to fold in any information you have from events or online products—that kind of data?

It’s a case-by-case basis, but we do a lot of custom work through our custom group, and that’s one thing Penton was an early adopter of—building custom solutions.

Does your hire signal a renewed focus in this area?

Yes, it’s going to be renewed and expanded in offering the expertise of putting together plans like this and understanding the value of the data and understanding the solutions that are available to our customers in their area of expertise. It’s really an expansion of that. Most recently, the custom group has been reporting under the Financial Services group and Warren Bimblick, and that’s a big focus for 2009.

Any early benchmarks you can share?

What I’m hearing is we’re going to be developing more lead-gen products for our customers so that they’re going to be able to segment and target directly to their own prospects and help them bring solutions to their own customers.