Directory firm SRDS announced today that it is launching an Internet companion to its Direct Marketing List Source that will feature daily data updates and will streamline the search for lists.
The online version will be packaged together with the print directory in a $499 subscription. The 2,500 existing subscribers to the Direct Marketing List Source will be mailed login and password codes to access the site (www.srds.com).
“We have been asked for this for some time,” said SRDS executive vice president/general manager Tom Drouillard in an exclusive interview with DM News. “People want to see the information online and they want to get the most updated information.”
SRDS, Des Plaines, IL, has reengineered its data acquisition methods over the last six to nine months to accommodate daily updates and become an online business. Eighty percent of the 24,000 datacards it maintains have been updated in the last three months, Drouillard said.
The change was essential to satisfy the demand of the more than 80 percent of DMLS users that use the Internet, said vice president of marketing George Carens.
Users can search online using the same indices and title classifications found in print. Queries can be performed by geography, type of list or keyword. A query can pull up a summary of each list in a classification or choose each list separately and view the entire listing as it would appear in print. Users also have the ability to print or e-mail datacards.
The site maintains listings of brokers, managers and compilers and industry classifications that mailers can use to assess which markets to target.
Beta testers of the site gave it mixed reviews.
“To do a search online is better than doing a page by page search. I found [lists] faster and came up with lists I hadn't thought of using,” said Tammy LoCascio, market manager for Cahners Business Lists, Des Plaines, IL. “I do so much research on the Internet, it was just a natural to go SRDS to look for more things.”
Joel Cooper, president of list brokerage firm List Strategies, New York, said the site had good, accurate search capabilities but saw no additional benefits.
“The online version of the directory is not all that much better than the print version,” he said. “I don't see it replacing the print version.”
The online DMLS was created for users of the print version and does not offer the same advanced functionality of the SRDS DirectNet service used by list brokers.
Advertisers in the print DMLS will receive complimentary spots in the online product.
