When Results Matter Most

06/24-30/2005

The City Paper

When Results Matter Most
By Philip Nannie

One of the biggest problems with advertising as a marketing tool is determining what return an advertiser receives for committing significant sums of money to campaigns which often generate little in the way of tangible results. Branding is often the moniker attached to such efforts, which to some is just another word for advertising failure.

Paula Milam, president and owner of Milam Results Marketing in Brentwood, approaches this dilemma by focusing on the results ads generate.

“You have to make marketing and advertising work on a bottom-line basis,” Milam says, saying that there are unpredictable trends and results to her direct-marketing business, and that bringing clarity to such efforts is what her seven-employee firm is all about.

Milam Results Marketing provides direct-response marketing services to area businesses, including integrated database marketing, list and media buying and advertising-program management.

“Our goal is to drive the right sales leads for the right product,” Milam says.

Milam attempts this through proprietary tracking mechanisms that show in real time what affect advertising efforts are having. Driven by call centers located across the country, response to marketing efforts is tracked, tallied and analyzed. Results from direct mail, television spots and radio campaigns are monitored through 1-800 numbers sometimes by the hour to determine customer response rates. This gives Milam’s company opportunity to make changes in real-time if needed.

“We may test an area several times before we pull it,” Milam says, adding it’s not necessary to run an ad in print or in other media multiple times if that ad isn’t working.

Direct Buy owner Steve Blume uses Milam’s company for all his company’s media buying and marketing efforts. The Cool Springs-based franchise owner purchases his TV, radio, newspaper and magazine advertising through Milam. She also acts as a consultant to Blume for all of the company’s direct response work.

Direct Buy is the largest private buying service in North America. The company purchase directly from over 750 major brand manufacturers of cabinets,, flooring, furniture and other home construction items.

“We feel like they know our business inside and out,” Blume says, adding Milam collects all of the response from Blume’s advertising efforts while he provides Milam with sales conversion information. Blume had been using a national agency before contracting with Milam two years ago.

“We didn’t feel like we were getting the attention we needed, so we made the switch,” Blume says.

Milam started her company in 2001, by acting as a direct- marketing consultant to area businesses. Local demand was such that Milam began adding clients quickly and started hiring staff; it has grown to nearly $3 million in annual revenue.

She says her biggest challenge has been hiring people with direct-response knowledge. Nashville hasn’t proven to be fertile ground for such talent, she says. Milam says she addresses that by training internally and sending her employees to conferences.

“Most resumes we get are branding resumes, not direct-marketing response,” she says.

Still, Milam has assembled a staff to whom she hopes one day to sell the company. Until then, her expectations are to increase her client base and revenues.

Milam is a 25-year veteran of the direct-marketing world.

In 1990, she started her own agency, then-named Cometto Direct in Philadelphia, which she sold in 1997 to Roska Direct.

Past clients include such firms as MBNA, First USA, PSE&G, Lenox collections, Gorham and others.

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