SFG hosts annual roundtable

SFG partners from across the country visited the Fort Worth Stockyards' National Historic District in November for the 2007 Partner Roundtable.

SFG ROUNDTABLE Tony Pytlak, SFG president/COO, opens the annual Partner Roundtable, held in Fort Worth, Texas. SFG representatives and industry leaders discussed a number of items of interest to the fulfillment industry.

The roundtable began with opening remarks and guest introductions by Tony Pytlak, SFG president/COO, who first introduced Ashraf Ishak, IBM Corp. strategic solutions leader. Ishak gave a presentation that covered IBM's advancements in processor technology. He discussed how the System i and DB2 Web Query products can turn data into intelligence that can be shared in various ways, such as e-mail, graphs, charts and software products.

Britt Sweat, SFG client services manager, discussed new enhancements to SFG systems. He touched on digital issues, enhanced up-sell programs, real-time Web services, e-renewals and recent improvements to SFG-hosted Web pages.

Jim Tucker, Integrated Marketing Technology Inc. president/CEO, discussed the rationale for building a marketing database, highlighting ways to build it, how to develop top-performing predictive models and how to segment subscriber files for optimal campaign return on investment.

Jon Rosswurm, DRG Internet marketing director, led a discussion about e-mail marketing. He cautioned marketers against becoming so focused on the technical issues surrounding e-mail marketing that they forget about the fundamentals of direct marketing. He also shared specific ideas and testing concepts that have proven successful in the e-mail marketing arena.

Profit Rank President/CEO Michael Gunn shared an overview of the importance, growth and volatility of sponsored and natural search-engine marketing channels. His discussion on search and affiliate marketing identified the benefits, pitfalls and profitability of such channels, along with how to use affiliate marketing to increase revenue.

Also present was Jim Cota, Rare Bird Inc. president/creative director and co-founder. He presented concepts on identifying and understanding the functions of a successful buying environment on the Internet. Cota's discussion centered on how to make the Internet shopping experience simple and enjoyable for the user, as well as how the power of automated e-mail and customized Web campaigns can help build a strong relationship with the customer.

Pam Bronnum, SFG database marketing manager, showcased SFG's solution to allow partners to gain insights into their data and enable more use of marketing and business intelligence applications in decision-making processes.

The roundtable discussion ended with Shirrel Rhoades, SFG senior advisor, leading an open dialogue on a broad range of topics of interest pertaining to the marketing and fulfillment industries.

When asked about his experience at this year's event, Scott Moss, DRG magazine marketing director, said, "I found the SFG roundtable to be a profitable experience, and I especially enjoyed the face-to-face interaction. I'm looking forward to the next one."

Chris Herman, Mayo Clinic Health Solutions senior operations manager of consumer marketing,said, "I think the biggest benefit of the roundtable is learning what other partners are doing and how it may apply to our business. SFG has a diverse group of partners with a lot of exciting marketing techniques. I have been to other fulfillment client conferences, and SFG's truly feels more like a partnership. It was relaxing and fun."

New customer service/mail processing manager Mark Ray has joined the SFG management team as customer service/mail processing manager. In his new role, he heads the SFG team responsible for telephone, Web and direct mail customer order and payment processing and customer service. Ray has 18 years of experience in executive process improvement and call center management in the areas of start-up, high growth, turn around and merger/acquisition phases, working in small, medium and large firms. During his career he has been associated with Fidelity, T-Mobile and Nextel. "SFG is a company entering a high-growth mode," said Ray. "For me, a company at this point in its growth cycle is the most intriguing, challenging and fun. It's an exciting time when things change quickly, progress is made and opportunities abound. I am happy to be part of SFG during this exciting time."

Client services director retires Cindy Gannon retired in January 2008 from her position as SFG client services director. She joined the company in 2004 as manager of special projects and later took on the role of client services director. Prior to joining SFG, Gannon worked 25 years in fulfillment for another major fulfillment provider. She will remain with SFG in a consulting role.

SFG has entered into a service partnership agreement with American Graphics Group for fulfillment of the company's hunting enthusiast titles, Hunting the Country and Farming for Wildlife.

The partnership is a multi-year agreement. Through its partnership with SFG, AGG will benefit from multiple business solutions, including database maintenance, subscription fulfillment, premium fulfillment, customer service, Web services and marketing support, all in SFG's real-time, relational database environment.

AGG's hunting titles are available at HuntingtheCountry.com and FarmingforWildlife.com. The company also publishes titles for the trucking industry, with publications distributed to more than 2,500 truck stops across the country.

"We are excited to have the opportunity to utilize SFG's expertise in fulfillment services and their new role as a marketing service firm," said AGG publisher Gordon Adams. "For several months, we looked for a company to handle our subscription fulfillment and a company to handle strategic marketing for our titles. Fortunately, we have found one company that can handle both. SFG can take the information they have captured from the back end and apply that knowledge to help us make better-informed marketing decisions."

SFG President/COO Tony Pytlak said, "I am thrilled to have such high-quality enthusiast titles as AGG's sign-on to take advantage of SFG's fulfillment solutions. In a time when the publishing industry is largely contracting, AGG is finding success with their titles. As a marketing partner, SFG is looking forward to enhancing that success."

Web services, digital editions...and more!

I just left the Magazine Publishers of America's "Magazines 24/7" conference. The tagline was "Building Audiences, Building Brands." It was quite an eye-opener!

Topics from social networking, video content, widgets (yes, widgets!), third-party development platforms, advergaming and digital editions ruled Day One. I think SFG was the only fulfillment company in attendance (per the attendee list). Now the question; WHY was SFG there?

Let's start with the tagline; "Building Audiences, Building Brands." As a fulfillment and marketing services company, I know SFG plays a major role in direct marketers' efforts at customer development. Actually, let's label it as customer development "audience" development, which is a much more appropriate term, since customers span many media channels.

With media consumption growing rapidly, SFG is focusing much more time and energy in developing Web offerings. Staying in touch with and anticipating publishers' moves online is key to developing marketing services that integrate with a publisher's customer database.

Imagine tying together your Web assets with real-time information, transferring directly to AND from your customer database--digital editions powered by your marketing services partner (SFG) and the gateway/rights management linked directly to your customer database (SFG), allowing targeted cross-sells and up-sells based on customer profiles (SFG)...and that's only ONE example of what's happening.

Plus, that's not just the future anymore. It's here now at SFG.

Where this typically breaks down is in relating what is learned from the new business models back to the core business customer. In other words, the information from the new business model is stored somewhere separate from core operations.