WHITE PLAINS, NY–Acxiom/Direct Media used its 23rd Annual Business Mailer's Co-op Conference and Hi-Tech Marketing Symposium here this week to introduce Business SmartBase, a cooperative membership business database, and a new tool to its Solvitur database marketing product line.
Business SmartBase will be modeled after consumer co-op databases used by catalogers and publishers. Mailers become members of the co-op by contributing their customer files in exchange for access to the blind, transaction-based, prospecting and customer reactivation database. Tapping into such a database provides members a way to generate high-performing names at low costs relative to individual list rental.
Acxiom/Direct Media unveiled the concept to a larger than expected audience of business mailers, who were urged to sign up for the test build of Business SmartBase by contributing their 24-month house file with purchase history. The build can begin with a minimum of 10 million names from 30 to 50 similar but not directly competitive companies. The first operating build is projected to be available Jan. 1 with a list rental fee of $65 per thousand names.
Acxiom/Direct Media also demonstrated the database marketing tool Engage. The newest addition to the Solvitur line is an upgraded version of Rapidus tailored to the needs of the list rental community. Engage allows mailers to query a prospecting database at their desktop to produce list counts with selections and segmentation. Now in beta testing, Engage is expected to be available by October.
