| United Marketing Group: Guerilla Marketing |
| Corporate Spotlight | |||
| Written by Eric Slack | |||
| Sunday, 01 June 2008 | |||
Headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill., UMG is well known as a top direct marketing firm, renowned for its merchandising capabilities and club membership services. The company uses all direct marketing channels, including online post transaction, e-mail and direct mail, and inbound and outbound calls. Since American Executive placed the spotlight on UMG in March last year, one big change for the company came in the form of some serious financial backing. MH Equity, the largest private equity fund in Indiana, recently acquired the company.  Vince Mazza, senior VP Shake off the rust Aside from the new-found financial support, UMG has been working to improve its already reputable core services. The company added a dedicated partnership development team whose focus is to ensure the creation of good, long-term and customized relationships with its partners out of the gate. These are the people attending trade shows, actively calling on prospective new partners, and structuring partnerships. It is also important to note UMG establishes relationships that are business partnerships rather than vendor/client relationships. It may require a ton of legwork to understand the needs of its partners’ businesses, but UMG already demonstrated an ability to work across business disciplines. This is due to its strong research group, which is responsible for all initial research and demographic comparisons. Educated channel and market testing shows UMG how to best go forward with its partners; ongoing testing grows the partnerships, and additional research during testing helps UMG’s partners determine the growth rate of their core business. This is how UMG brings value to the relationship. “We are not a one-trick pony. We look to develop fully integrated partnerships,” said Mazza. “This allows our partners to maximize their earnings potential through online and offline marketing channels and offer our membership club products or merchandise to their customers.” UMG goes beyond that by providing its partners with services such as legal and financial advice from attorney networks and CPAs. Most of its business comes from its club membership programs, whereby UMG offers various discounts to its partners’ customers, saving money on travel, retail purchases, dining, and more. One new key to UMG’s business is its branded products division. These programs offer subscription membership products that have a brand attached to it, such as the ESPN rewards club and Arthur Frommer’s budget travel. Consumers buy from brands they know and trust. This is a new division based out of its Fairfield, Conn. office and is expected to be another growth initiative for UMG. Another new product Mazza highlighted is UMG’s Simply Mine program. Tailored to women, it offers cash back savings at more than 400 online retailers in female buying categories, personal health management programs, and discounts at health clubs and with WeightWatchers. “Simple Mine is focusing on the female marketplace by addressing beauty, fitness, home, family, and fun,” Mazza said. “Those are areas that best appeal to the majority of women and offers savings in key buying areas for the female demographic.” New directions The company is also rapidly going after new markets. Historically, UMG has worked mostly with larger companies in the oil and gas, retail, financial, catalog, and utilities industries. It is now offering new products to small businesses, entering more heavily into the Hispanic market, and also expanding overseas into Europe. New products such as its technical support product for consumers and small businesses, as well as a merchandising initiative out of its new UK office, are designed to help make these new undertakings succeed. UMG also recently introduced a new program called LoyalReward. It is designed to offer its merchandise at large savings to build loyalty for its partners online. Going forward, Mazza believes UMG’s success and growth hinges on strong processes and systems in place, as well as strong leadership, great people, compliance, and innovation. The business can trace its origins back more than 30 years, but taking the next steps requires maintaining discipline and open minds. With leadership, Mazza himself came from GE. A substantial number of UMG’s team came from The Signature Group and cut their teeth at GE, which Mazza called a great training ground. The company is also hiring people from related businesses who have a keen understanding of the online perspective of UMG’s core services. UMG also has ongoing training and career growth and motivational sessions, rewarding employees for bringing new ideas to the table to better serve customers and partnerships and grow the business. As for processes and systems, formal internal kickoff meetings ensure all parties are heavily involved while developing new partnerships. Formalized review sessions allow UMG to retain its entrepreneurial sprit while forcing the organization to focus on details about what needs to get done in a timely basis. Also, UMG’s relationship with its sister company, Teleformix, provides UMG with state-of-the-art echo call recording software at its call center and also offers CRM-based software and programs. “Since we are expanding, customer service is essential to the growth of our business and that of our customers,” Mazza said. “The more we can provide in terms of service for consumers and businesses, the more valuable we are as a partner and to our partners’ customers.” |
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American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
American Executive is a RedCoat Publishing publication.
