Though Terra Lycos has an informal relationship with a list management firm, it plans to formally contract a list manager to handle its files by the end of this month.
“Basically, we have this tremendous asset that has been underleveraged, and we're looking for a formal relationship to be in place to maximize the revenue that we think we can gain from such a relationship,” said Dean Macchi, director of direct marketing services at Terra Lycos, Waltham, MA.
On April 5, Terra Lycos sent request-for-proposal letters to 10 list management firms that it considers major players in the industry, he said. Among the firms was Direct Media Inc., Greenwich, CT, through which the Terra Lycos files are available at this time.
Macchi declined to name the others but said he might consider pitches from additional qualified companies.
The list manager for Terra Lycos primarily will be responsible for the domestic and international Terra Lycos postal names and selling its e-mail append service. It also will act as a secondary sales source for its e-mail file, which Terra Lycos also sells through its internal sales force.
The Terra Lycos network has about 180 sites, including Lycos.com, Angelfire.com, Wired.com, Gamesville.com and RagingBull.com. Overall, the Terra Lycos database consists of about 5 million names, with more than one-third of the user base being outside the United States. The Terra Lycos global headquarters is in Barcelona, Spain.
