Building Contact Databases Emerges as Fast-Growth Service Offering

September 7,2005 – Sudbury, MA SimplyDIRECT has experienced strong revenue growth in 2005, but what surprised the principals was that much of that growth came from its database-building services. Company president, Doug Barth said, “It seems in 2005 the market finally embraced what our vision has been all along: the database is the most important asset for a B2B marketing department.”

SimplyDIRECT has traditionally been known as a lead generation company, pioneering the practice using closed-loop, executive-level, opt-in, web-based surveys. But behind the success of that offering was always the high accuracy databases built to the client’s specifications.

“Those campaigns were often successful because 100% of the responses to a campaign matched the client’s targeting criteria,” explained company founder, Doug Barth. “It always seemed like magic to our clients, regardless of how many times we told them we only invited their hand-picked responders in advance.”

“…the market finally embraced what our vision has been all along: the database is the most important asset for a B2B marketing department.”

From nearly the beginning, SimplyDIRECT offered clients the source database, used in that client’s campaigns, as a deliverable. “Approximately 10% of clients asked for the database as a deliverable… which blew our minds,” Barth recalls. “In many ways the database was the secret sauce of the campaign.”

“The reason we chose to custom-build the databases in the first place,” Barth explained, “was that we were keenly aware of the inferior quality of contact names available on the open market.” In researching marketing professionals at the time most regarded the deliverables from leading list companies – and, indeed, their own company’s prospect database – as “poor” or “room for improvement.” Further, in annual research sponsored by SimplyDIRECT, 80% of companies feel their database needs updating or is otherwise incomplete.”

In 2002 the company consciously pursued the business of custom-building databases. “Contact discovery, data hygiene, database creation, list building – there are many terms used to describe this offering,” Barth said. Often the client has only three alternatives: rent a list, hijack some admin to update a list, or use SimplyDIRECT to develop a list.

It seems that in 2005 the market not only matured to the point where it realized the value of custom-built databases, but it also discovered SimplyDIRECT as a leading database provider.

SimplyDIRECT is a marketing services firm that helps clients identify, engage and qualify prospects with maximum precision. Its offerings include survey-based lead generation, building target account databases and cleaning and enhancing inquiries and leads. Founded in 1996 and based in Sudbury , Massachusetts the company is privately held.