Directories are an incredibly valuable addition to any Influencer’s website. Directories can:

• Generate new revenue from sponsorships and enhanced listings.
• Draw additional traffic to your website as users seek companies in a particular product area.
• Help Influencers form a closer bond with participating companies.

Directories can be very labor intensive and require significant coordination. Categories and Classifications need to be defined, potential participants need to be invited and sent reminder notices, responses have to be sorted and normalized, and finally the information needs to be posted live and maintained. One publisher who switched to mBLAST historically worked on their “directory project” intensively for 5 months each year! Invitations and Data collections typically take place via downloadable PDFs, faxes, e-mails, while payments are made through the mail. Launching a Directory using this method – then maintaining it throughout the year as information changes – is incredibly labor intensive and expensive.

mBLAST’s Directory platform solution automates the entire Directory process end to end via an online platform that is available to entrants and the Directory Administrator 24/7/365. You simply create your classification categories and hierarchies, determine the data you want to collect from users and how it will be sorted, determine if there are fees involved, and determine with your in-house team what the Directory will look like when it feeds to your site from mBLAST.

Participating companies enter their own information, update their listings, and even purchase enhanced listings using mBLAST’s Payment System, saving you valuable time and money. Our clients tell us the mBLAST Directory solution has eliminated up to 80% of the manual labor, time, and expense previously required for the administration of their Directories. When your data collection is complete you can easily export the data for use in a printed directory, increasing your revenue potential.

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With mBLAST, Directories are easy to create and maintain because users enter, update and control their own data.


Key features of mBLAST’s Directory platform include:

• An entire Communications System that allows your customized e-mail messages to be sent to your entire audience or specific subsets of it, receive alerts regarding new participants, and more.

  Communications are built right into the mBLAST system, and Directory organizers can quickly and easily distribute customized Invitations, Reminders, Deadline Extensions, and more to their entire contact list. mBLAST’s Communications area also allows you to target just a specific subset of your list, such as those companies that started a Directory survey but never completed it. This functionality allows your team to target these users individually or as a group, contact them for a follow up, etc. You won’t find this feature in systems developed by in-house IT departments; unless users submit an entry, you don’t know about them and can’t do appropriate follow-ups. This same Communications System also alerts you to new entries in your Directories, so you’re always in the know about who is participating.

• Customizable Forms that let you create your Directories based on your specific categories and classification. mBLAST supports unlimited levels of classification hierarchies, allowing your Directory to be as detailed as your needs require. You can easily add, delete and modify questions and categories as markets change. And, all of your details can easily be copied and/or modified from directory to directory, saving you even more time on subsequent offerings.

  The “look and feel” of a Directory is important to the host company. You want everything about your Directory to have your branding, contain just the questions you want to ask of your participants, and be filtered by the criteria you want to specify. mBLAST’s extensive Preferences section asks you a series of questions that help you personalize your Directory forms with your company logo, set parameters around participation, and more. When the Guide is ready to be launched on your site, your in-house IT team is in charge of how the information is displayed, giving you complete control.

• A complete Customer Service offering that is available via online chat, e-mail, and phone to answer any questions your participants might have about the process.

  Our clients rave about the professionalism, expertise, and promptness of our customer service staff. mBLAST’s professional support staff is available 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., EST Monday-Friday via live chat on the site and telephone, as well as via e-mail outside these hours. More than 95% of the questions from users are answered within 5 minutes, and all users are responded to within 24 hours.

• A simple User Interface that walks users through the Directory process step by step, allows them to save Drafts of their entries and invite colleagues to participate with them if needed.

  mBLAST’s simple registration process includes a user name and password to ensure security. Users simply register, fill out their basic contact and company information, and begin their entry. To make any changes, users can log in and  make the changes themselves. Two very popular features of our Directory solution include the ability for the user to save their entries in Draft form (eliminating any potential data loss) and the ability to grant other users access to collaborate on entries (aka, Invite a Friend).

• A comprehensive Payment System that interfaces with all of the top payment gateways

  It’s easy to upsell users from a basic listing to enhanced features with mBLAST. We support multiple pricing structures as well as an ecommerce solution that interfaces with all of the top payment gateways, ensuring revenue flows.

• A robust Reporting System that automatically tallies results and tracks various parameters, such as overall participation rates, overall revenue, and more – allowing you to easily track the success and profitability of your Directory.
  
• Levels of control that allow you to screen Directory entrants or have them approved automatically, depending on your preference.

See why more and more Influencers are turning to mBLAST to power their Directories. Subscribe now, or contact us to learn more.