Harte-Hanks Data Technologies has introduced Integrated Direct Marketing, which it says pulls together all phases of a direct marketing program at a single source.
The service includes program strategy, audience selection, printing, and response tracking. Marketers can gain access to Harte-Hanks' extensive customer data bases, as well as their own, from a desktop computer.
David Blackwell, director of data base marketing services at Billerica, Mass.-based Harte-Hanks, said it had decided to roll out Integrated Direct Marketing after a successful installation at Sanwa Bank in Los Angeles.
"We not only help banks develop the creative and program strategies, but we also help them in the printing of it in the letter shop and the postal processing," said Mr. Blackwell.
"Once the data base has been built on a mainframe system, we then can compress it and extract relevant information that the marketer is going to want."
Harte-Hanks, which has nearly 100 bank clients, generates mail tapes that are sent to printers for delivery. The data base is updated monthly, which helps banks track the relative success of their direct mail campaigns.
The integrated service, which addresses a growing demand among banks for marketing-oriented customer information, is a result of Harte-Hanks' purchase last year of Direct Market Concepts Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., which has 30 years of experience in direct marketing for banks.
"Some people have been in telemarketing business for a long time, but it seems to have gained greater impetus during the last year," said Andrew mayer, senior manager with Ernst & Young in New York.
"Product sales through the mail are really picking up steam in the banking industry," said David Blake, senior vice president of First NH Bank, Manchester, N.H.
Though not a Harte-Hanks integrated user, he said it has put more resources into direct marketing in the last year "because the power of the data base tool allows us to be much more selective in who we want to make offers to."
Mr. Blake added, "I think we'll continue to shift resources towards direct marketing. I think that product sales through the mail on a timely basis are really picking up steam in the banking industry."
John Menke, vice president with Fleet Financial Group Inc., Providence, R.I., said Desktop Direct, a product incorporated in the integrated package that allows data bases to be updated from a PC or workstation, is a marketing "innovation."
