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Today we meet Tracy Egan, associate media director at Media Horizons Inc. in Norwalk, CT. Egan oversees list and insert media brokerage for the agency's clients.

She began her journey in management and brokerage 13 years ago, as a list registrar at LR Direct Ltd. Then she put in five years as a brokerage account executive with RMI Direct Marketing Inc., before joining Media Horizons a little over two years ago.

"I work with all the clients. Primarily it's brokerage in consumer markets for lists and insert media, but I have done some B-to-B," Egan says.

Some of the clients she works with include Oreck Direct, Nestle Waters North America, Bose Corp., Wall Street Journal, JCPenney.com, Red Cats USA and Bradford Group.

Egan prefers negotiating for multichannel media deals, which may include lists, insert media such as blow-ins, package insert programs and FSIs; as well as Internet media for clients.

"I'm not just looking for an insert programs or lists for orders, I'm looking for opportunities to put together packages with complementary media," says Egan.

Testing and scheduling multiple media channels certainly makes negotiating more complex for brokers, but oftentimes it leads to new opportunities for access to online media, she adds.

Egan negotiates life at home with her husband and two children, a girl 4, and a boy, 2. She devotes free time to family beach outings and trips to Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains region. Her daughter's upcoming dance recital will be the family's next big adventure.

How have recent postal rate hikes affected insert media?

Mailers flocking to Slim Jim catalog formats to save money on postage and paper are curtailing opportunities for blow-in insert media.

Commingled mail reduces availability of slots for insert media too, as inserts are typically targeted by product or demographic categories. Putting together a plan for insert media gets more cumbersome as more mailers commingle more packages for postage discounts.

Space is tight for PIPs too, because the weight of envelopes and multiple inserts puts pressure on postage and shipping costs.

For all these reasons, Egan says she prefers to integrate complementary media, lists, on-page and other types of advertising when negotiating deals.

What's the source of growth for the insert media marketplace?

Companies selling products online are the primary sources of new insert media. It's a trend Egan has been seeing more of lately.

"Dot-com companies are becoming more involved with insert media programs," she says.

PIPs offered by Internet marketers tend to be larger than those offered by traditional catalogers. "A typical catalog ships 500,000 packages annually, while a typical dot-com ships 750,000 to a million packages a year," she says.

Know someone you'd like to suggest for Meet the Broker? E-mailJim.Emerson@Penton.com

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