Meet the Broker: Amy Carraher

Today we meet Amy Carraher, vice president of sales at Focus USA. A 20-year industry veteran who's brokered lists at such firms as Mokrynski & Associates, RMI Direct Marketing and 24/7 Mail, she sees the role of the list broker expanding from its original definition.

"They have to be part of their end users' team," she says. "They can't work in a vacuum anymore—they have to be on the pulse of everything. They have to bring so much more to the table."

At Focus USA, where she's been for the past seven years, Carraher works with the brokerage community and also gets involved with mailers' prospecting strategies, offering ideas on penetrating new markets.

Another obvious change in the industry she's seen is technological.

"We used to do everything by hand at Mokrynski. It was all manual," she says.

Now, of course, the Web and social media "are really changing the way we communicate and the way we market to the consumer," she says.

She likened the current state of social media with e-mail marketing 10 to 15 years ago, when everybody thought they had to be in it.

"I think social media [will work] in combination with e-mail marketing. It's here to stay, especially with the younger generation," she says. "It's just how they speak to another and that's really going to drive how we speak to them as well."

Likewise with mobile marketing and text messaging.

"It's a great way to reach the younger audience. They're so much more receptive to receiving messages on their phones and they don't feel it's an invasion of privacy."

Nevertheless, she says, one must not forget the basics.

"I still think direct mail is the driving force for new customer acquisition but e-mail and mobile and social media are a close second," she says. "With the rise in postage, printing and paper it's in people's marketing [interest] to enhance their direct mail efforts with e-mail, at the very least."

Focus USA has also begun offering services to U.S.-based firms that want to expand overseas, she says.

When of the job, Carraher is often following around her 15- and 12-year-old sons—both of whom play the electric guitar—to various gigs. So far, they have opened concerts for groups like Yes, Asia and Kool and the Gang.