Larry Buchweitz and Sean Sinnott have joined the MCH sales team. As a Regional Sales Manager, Buchweitz is based in Chicago. Sinnott is MCH's new Broker Sales Manager and will be based in Omaha.

Larry Buchweitz has more than 25 years of experience in the direct marketing industry with particular expertise in data driven solution sales. Prior to joining MCH, Buchweitz held senior sales positions with companies including Experian, CMG Direct, MKTG Education, MarketsOn Demand, and MDR. His experience includes creation of integrated direct marketing programs for education, retail, catalog, and publishing companies. Larry has a BA in Liberal Arts & Sciences from the University of Illinois, Chicago. Click to continue

MCH invited a special panel of leading education administrators to share their insight regarding school spending and the impact of ARRA stimulus funding in 2009 and beyond.

Panelists for the webinar were Kim Brightwell, CFO of the Blue Springs School District in Blue Springs, MO and Marjorie Murray, Director of Special Projects at Seminole County Public Schools in Sanford, FL. The event was well attended and there were a number of targeted questions from our audience. Key takeaways from our panelists:

• They have been overwhelmed with emails and calls from vendors and have a difficult time sorting through inquiries and replying appropriately.
• They appreciate vendors who take time to understand their particular school district's needs and who were willing to work with them on delivery dates, payment schedules, etc.
• Marjorie and Kim agreed that they were more likely to give their attention to a strategically written direct mail piece that related a vendor's products and services to programs approved under the funding guidelines. Click to continue

Local government decision makers will be choosing how to spend millions of dollars in ARRA discretionary funds. Make sure you're getting your offer in front of the right people. Channel_e(tm) government emails provide a comprehensive and multi-channel solution to your marketing needs. Research shows that response rates increase when you supplement your print offers with email campaigns. The MCH file includes 35,000 decision maker email addresses in more than 35 departments. For example:

Total Count: 35,000

• City Clerk/County Clerk: 3,491
• City Manager/County Manager: 2,250
• Emergency Services Director: 1,088
• Parks & Rec Director: 1,078 
• Public Works Director: 1,303
• Building Official: 1,293
• City Assessor/County Assessor: 1,174
• Treasurer: 2,196

Counts are increasing daily. Contact your MCH sales representative today to get the most recent count.

Click here to review the datacard.

Suzanna Stagemeyer interviewed MCH CEO, Peter Long, for a special edition of the Kansas City Business Journal. Long provided several strategies that businesses can use to capitalize on stimulus funding opportunities and indicated that marketers may only need to make minor strategy tweaks to be successful. Long said, "Getting a piece of the stimulus pie is not necessarily very tough...If businesses treat everybody as a for-profit business, they may be eliminating a third of the GDP of the United States." Martin Travers, President of Black & Veatch was also interviewed for the article. He said that Black & Veatch has launched a special service to help companies prepare applications for the $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funding.

Click here to read the entire story (subscription required).

Kirk Chritton, Director of Marketing, was chosen as a presenter for the MeritDirect Mailer's Co-op in White Plains, NY. Chritton reported that the event for B2B marketers was well attended, productive and enjoyable.

Chritton's presentation was titled, "Recession Resistant Marketing". In it, he focused on the one-third of the economy driven by institutions. Highlights of the presentation include:

• Institutions are the large non-commercial organizations in the healthcare, education, and government sectors of the economy. 
• While they aren't recession-proof, they are highly recession resistant. 
• Through the current economic crisis, healthcare, education, and government are adding jobs. 
• Institutions are on the receiving end of nearly half of the economic stimulus package passed in February. Most of that money is just starting to be spent, and is keeping institutions in a far more stable budget position than general businesses. In today's economy, even the lesser segments of the institutional market are likely to outperform the typical business segment. 
• The headlines are full of stories of institutions cutting back, but many of those "cut backs" are slowed growth or budget cuts of 1%-2%. Most businesses would be very happy to have only a 2% budget reduction. Click to continue 

Stimulus funding continues to flow to the states. John F. Hood, President of MCH, has developed a method of tracking ARRA disbursements to the states. We encourage you to visit our StimulusMarketing website to get the latest information. It's clear that marketing success in 2009 and 2010 is dependent on developing a state-by-state strategy. 

Click here to see the latest spreadsheet.

Hospitals, nursing homes, retirement centers, senior centers, schools, colleges, and universities-the list of institutions that need food service products is endless. Many institutions now offer multiple dining choices within the same facility. There has been an increase in the number of communities that provide "Meals on Wheels" to its senior citizens. Red Cross chapters have sporadic volume needs due to the unpredictable nature of the external impacts such as natural disasters. Correctional institutions have captive populations that need to be fed. Many churches sponsor community outreach programs that involve food service products. Take a look around to make sure you are capitalizing on every opportunity in this market!

Click here to review datacards that are suitable for marketers of Food Services products and then call your MCH sales representative to get a count on those "why didn't I think of that?" institutions you may have missed.

DMA09
October 18-20, 2009
San Diego Convention Center
Meet the MCH team at Booth #1443

Click here to request a quote for any of MCH's institutional databases and services.