Meet the Broker: Stan Madyda

Today we meet Stan Madyda, senior vice president at Estee Marketing Group Inc. "Over the years I've worked in a lot of niche markets from fly fishing to military collectibles, mainly with consumer lists and package insert programs," said Madyda.

He currently provides list brokerage services for FAO Schwarz, Honey Baked Ham, U.S. Calvary Stores, Uniforms Unlimited, Manhattanville College, Doubleday Entertainment Book Clubs, Dayrunner and Great American Hanger Co.

He began his career as a list registrar at Leon Henry Inc., where he was responsible for updating data cards for list management clients. Before Estee, he worked at Walter Karl Inc., Direct Media Inc. and D-J Associates.

Besides being a list broker, Madyda, who is single, serves as ascension manager for the Danbury Railway Museum in Connecticut. He keeps a personal model railroad collection at home. His favorite outdoor pastime is attending minor league baseball games.

He's responsible for obtaining donations of train engines and cars for exhibition and arranging for delivery to the museum.

"You'd think it would be easy to get them delivered by rail, but coordinating it sometimes makes list brokerage look like a breeze," he quipped.

How do you find lists not offered on the open market by list management companies, that may be accessible through special private arrangements?

Madyda finds list owners to approach and brokers deals by locating individual Web site operators and contacting companies that use DR space advertising in magazines.

"There are lists out there. It takes a lot of phone calls and researching, but the Internet presents more opportunities to make contacts [with list owners]—and some later become brokerage clients," said Madyda.

"I've found association lists not necessarily in the SRDS directory. A lot depends on the individual list owner or finding the key person responsible," he added.

Clients often provide good leads for contacts they meet at trade shows. Then, he said, it becomes a matter of educating them and showing them the financial benefits associated with list rentals.

How important is the Internet as a source for new lists and collecting names?

Each year more lists come on the market from e-commerce sources and the percent of names gathered online by catalogers and other direct marketers grows, but it's still small compared to the postal list market, according to Madyda.

"Internet sourced names are available, but in the catalog business and other areas it's still a postal world," he said. "There are more privacy issues with the Internet."

Brokers benefit with more business opportunities due to the expansion of multi-channel marketing, he said. Internet companies are starting catalogs, and postal-oriented direct marketers are using e-mail lists.

The process for making list recommendations is no different for consumer, business-to-business, catalog or online marketing, according to Madyda. "It all goes back to identifying your niche, coming up with keywords and doing your research."

Know someone you'd like to suggest for Meet the Broker? E-mail Jim Emerson at jim.emerson@penton.com