Yesmail Inc. will debut the initial release of its next generation e-mail technology platform, Project Magellan, later this quarter with an eye toward integration of its parent company’s resources, the infoUSA subsidiary said yesterday.
“The Yesmail platform is an e-mail campaign management tool,” said Mike Hilts, president and general manager of Yesmail, Portland, OR. “In the new version, users will have access to the infoUSA data within the application, and … it will allow greater integration with customers’ existing systems.”
The added data will let Yesmail customers build profiles for better targeting and more effective marketing programs. InfoUSA’s proprietary database has 250 million consumers and 14 million businesses. It will be the first time that the offline data has been integrated within Yesmail’s platform.
“It’s a significant dollar investment on the part of infoUSA,” Hilts said. “This is where the market is heading, and infoUSA is investing in that.”
The project results from a collaboration between Yesmail and @Once. InfoUSA, Omaha, NE, purchased the retention-based e-mail technology firm in January 2005 and rolled it into Yesmail later last year. It acquired Yesmail from CMGI Inc. in March 2003. Yesmail is part of infoUSA’s Donnelley Group. Yesmail began work on Project Magellan in August and has scheduled the release for later this quarter and is looking at another release in the third quarter. Features will be introduced in 30 to 60 days, Hilts said, and Yesmail is doing customer presentations with a working demo of the prototype.
“We’re attempting to help marketers use offline data that has traditionally been used to support direct mail campaigns to further enhance their e-mail and online initiatives,” said Tim Price, Yesmail’s senior vice president of sales. “What we’re proposing is that you can take a deeper look at your online customers by appending demographic and psychographic data, and that can help you analyze your messaging more effectively.”
