Crain’s Foray Into the E-mail List Rental Market

The company has loosened up its rules on renting email lists during the past year and put together a masterfile that recently hit the market.

By Chandra Johnson-Greene
Monday, January 4, 2010

At a time when most b-to-b publishers were turning to e-mail list rentals to supplement the decline in the level of direct mail prospects, Kathy Henry, who became Crain Communications’ corporate circulation & audience development director this past September, had joined a company that was dead-set against it.

“It was one of the things that Crain historically didn’t do,” she told AD. “To them, it was similar to the telephone in that it bothers people. As a company, they are very audience sensitive and they have a ‘reader’s first’ motto.”

But the company has loosened up during the past year and put together an email masterfile that recently hit the market. Crain had about 25 different postal files already on the market, but like most publishers, things weren’t looking so good, with revenues remaining flat in 2009, according to Henry. “We’re pretty much in the same boat as everyone else,” she said. “But we’ve had huge support for e-mail list rentals, which is great because it will help us with our overall revenues.”

MeritDirect, which is handling Crain’s e-mail masterfile, is promoting the product using a combination of online and offline promotions, according to Henry. In all direct mail efforts, prospects are directed to a customized Web page featuring all of the company’s lists. It also allows prospects to search all of Crain’s datacards by keyword, contact sales and customer service teams, and place orders online.

The vendor has also appended information to the names in the file, such as company name and the number of employees. “One of the drivers for creating this masterfile is the small business sector,” Henry says. “We have a lot of regional titles that are not very attractive to national buyers. But there are people out there that want small business names across all sectors.”

Despite the reservations that the company had in the past about e-mail rental lists, there have been very little repercussions, according to Henry. “One of the hurdles in starting a program like this is the idea that you’re going to somehow damage your lists, but I have yet to see anything detrimental occur,” Henry said. “It’s something worth trying because you can always stop if something goes wrong.”

Henry adds that during 2010, the company will continue to try and expand their universe of the types of mailers they target. Crain’s sales team has also begun the practice of using its lists as an incentive for advertisers. “Selling lists as a part of an integrated buy is a great way to target clients that don’t traditionally go to list managers,” she says.