David Shepard Associates Blog

At the DMA conference, the long standing debate over hosted (service bureau) vs. in-house marketing databases will continue.  In our experience, there is no one right answer.  Each organization must consider the issues of costs, speed, development, equipment and specialty software.

Which is cheaper?

Some claim outside service bureaus. There is the age-old argument of mark-up versus leverage. Some say if you do it in-house, you can avoid the mark-up of everything that is done by the service bureau. That is true to some degree. The other argument is that the service bureau can leverage equipment and resources across multiple clients. That is also true to some degree. It all comes down to:

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Does this sound familiar? You work for a retailer with a large catalog and Internet business. Your bosses figure out that not all customers are the same when it comes to brand loyalty, and that their purchase behaviors reflect this disparity.

They decide to divide the buyers into manageable clusters. Then they hire a market research firm to survey customers on their needs and perceptions.

And guess what? They put you in charge of the project.
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