Choosing a future career is tough for most high school students—but it wasn’t for Barry Blumenfield. He began his career at BMI Global-OMS while still in high school, taking care of customers and filling orders. He left the family business for five years to work as an account executive at two other direct marketing services providers, returning in 1993 and taking the reins as CEO in 1995.

A long-time member of DMCNY, he lends his expertise to the organization and its members by serving on the board. But marketing isn’t Blumenfield’s only passion. He plays guitar and sings in a groove band called Bone Dry.

Here’s an inside look at Blumenfield’s career journey and his take on data-driven marketing.

Why marketing?

I grew up in the industry, listening to my dad teach direct marketing classes when I was a little kid, packing orders when I was 12, handling data entry and customer service when I was in high school, and volunteering at DMDAYS in New York while in college. So, it was probably inevitable that I would end up in the family business.

What was the biggest career challenge you overcame?

In 2005 our business was not doing well, and the future was uncertain. I approached one of our business partners about acquiring BMI and they asked me to put together a business plan. I developed a plan that would allow us to continue as an individual business unit within their company, but they turned it down. I then realized that the business plan I had developed would work without them, so we executed it. We were profitable within six months and are still in operation 15 years later. 

Share a favorite customer story.

Our proudest story is that of a client who retained us to help them “run out” two separate subscription programs that had become too costly to operate on their prior order management system (OMS). The client had decided to halt all promotions, and because they only expected the programs to remain active for a year at most, just needed a temporary OMS solution.

Following the switch to BMI Global-OMS, we were able to identify multiple opportunities to improve processes, retention practices, and customer lifetime value for the business. That resulted in a significant increase in revenue, prompting the client to realize that the programs weren’t dying—they had just been using the wrong OMS. The client is now actively promoting those programs, and five years later they are still in business and growing.

What’s one change that stands out most, having worked at BMI Global-OMS for nearly 30 years? 

The entire industry has just changed so much, from the old days of inbound mail order processing and “green bar” printouts, which could take days to complete, to now receiving orders instantaneously over the web, and being able to access hundreds of times more data in seconds.

The speed at which new ideas can now come to fruition is astounding, and I’m still amazed at how quickly our developers are able to implement extremely complicated projects in just a few hours or days, when they used to take weeks to complete. 

What advice would you have given your younger self when entering marketing? 

Listen more, talk less.

Give one prediction for the future of marketing.  

Response rates will continue to improve as marketers acquire more and more data about customers, allowing for more relevant and timely offers to be made for the right product, to the right people, at the right time.

What’s the biggest data-related challenge facing the industry right now?

Information overload and the resulting “analysis paralysis.” With so much data now at their fingertips, we see some clients obsessing over data points that may be interesting, but don’t necessarily provide actionable insights.

Marketers need to ask themselves, “What question am I trying to answer, and what am I going to do with the results?” That will help avoid wasting time gathering and analyzing data that may not result in increased sales or revenue.

What do you enjoy the most about being a member of DMCNY? 

I enjoy the friendships I’ve developed over the past 30-plus years. Not only have those relationships been great for my business, but many of the DMCNY members have become close friends, and that’s more important than anything else.