Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Would You Pay

Posted by Anonymous on 7/22/2008 at 1:14 PM ET 500 Points
We've developed a media relations application but, in order for it to be sucessfuly, people need to be able to invite media members to track there company. Our solution is an online media database with an invitation module.
But, we are also selling a stand alone option for purchasing the entire media list. Most of the data on the list has been updated within the past 12 months. The entire list is approximately 300,000 + media contacts, over 79,000 media organizations and data fields including Outlet Name, Contact Name, Title, Email, Address, etc..
We are planning on marketing the complete list for sale for just $799. Would you pay this?

Also, we are still strategizing on the media database pricing but were thinking about approximately $50 per month with up to 10,000 downloads per year. Does that sound good? Would you pay that amount?

Your response is appreciated.

Call me if you have additional input? [phone number deleted by staff]
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 7/22/2008 at 2:04 PM Accepted
    While you have an impressive number of media outlets in your list, I'd worry about a list that can't be sorted by target audience/topic/category. Very few, if any, releases are really appropriate for all media. Most releases really are only of interest to a subset. So your list needs to be sortable by a category such as business, women's, parenting, etc.--the more descriptive, the better. The list becomes even more useful if the categories are very narrow and can be concatenated to create special interest lists.

    You also don't say what format the list is in. That's a huge number of names--I'm guessing it's not in Excel. The list's attractiveness to businesses will also depend on whether specialized software is needed to run it. How easy is it to sort? Can new names be added? Will you offer a service contract with annual updates for an additional fee? (otherwise, the list rapidly goes out of date).

    Do you really want to sell the list per se (as a download), or sell access to the list in an ASP format, where it still resides on your servers but can be accessed by members? That's where I'm unclear on the difference between the list and the "media database pricing."

    Will you be doing interim updates to keep the information fresh? Then the value difference between the two becomes 1) buy the list (goes out of date but you can use it for unlimited mailings) or 2) access the list via our database (stays fresh but limited number of downloads). You'll need to make sure any other differences in customer support, tracing, reporting, etc. are clear.

    Depending on the quality of your data, your pricing is well below media databases such as Burrelles.
  • Posted on 7/22/2008 at 4:03 PM Member
    I have some of the same questions as Gail.

    It still doesn't seem the list can be sorted by subject matter, such as aviation or cooking (which is what counts).


    How often will it be updated, if a subscription basis?

    Will someone who "buys" the list have later access to updates? Or would they have to buy a new version?

    How did you obtain the information?

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 7/23/2008 at 9:52 AM Member
    I would love to see a feature where I can download links to articles & shows that the contacts had involvement on. This would allow me to find a likely friendly ear for a follow-on story and a very targeted campaign.

    Since people changes jobs often, having an up-to-date list is more important than one frozen in time. Basically, I want to pay for accuracy. And as others have mentioned, the ability to segment the list is vital.
  • Posted by steven.alker on 7/28/2008 at 7:32 AM Member
    Gary

    I’ll contact you off line as you’ve closed this. The sort of data which you offer, sorted by the key topic areas for vertical marketing PR is available in the UK from BRAD and Willets. Subscription is $200-$400/month or £1928 for a yearly subscription including the books of directories (GB, Europe and USA).

    I’d be interested in looking at this in the UK as well and if you have the structure to handle the commerce, maybe rather than re-invention the wheel, we could just source up-to-date contact information and relevant media info. Heck, you could even license the BRAD info as they don’t do this sort of service for their customers.

    There was a “free” contact database back in 1999 with low access rates like yours, but they had re-typed their contact information from BRAD without permission and were closed down. It’s getting the media data together and keeping it up-to-date that is difficult as it is a continuous ongoing operation.

    Still, if you launched with UK data in the UK then you’d have about 200,000 small to medium businesses to sell to as PR over here is around £450 per vertical market addressed or £750 for doing around 100 journals across two or three closely matching verticals.

    Do get in contact with me – my email address is on my biography page


    Steve Alker

    [URL deleted by staff]
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