Greg Swent
Greg Swent • Written July 2009
Greg’s twenty year direct marketing career started out as membership director for Maserati Information Exchange, one of the largest classic Italian automotive membership organizations. After several years he moved on to become VP of direct marketing for Northwest Center for Professional Education. Next Greg re-joined the family, going to work for his father at Marketry, Inc. in 1991, became Vice President and partner in 1995 and was promoted to President in 2004.
His 20-year direct marketing career has spanned countless direct response clients, strategies and executions, with a focus on offline and online customer acquisition and lead generation. Current client experience includes, American Power Conversion, Concur Technologies, Google, Harvard University, Jamba Juice, Questex Media Group, Tektronix, VMware and many others.
Greg is a past president of the Seattle Direct Marketing Association and currently serves on the board of a number of national Direct Marketing Association committees.
Marketry’s involvement in the Northwest direct marketing community goes back to the early 1970’s when my father, Norm Swent was hired as a program developer and marketing consultant for City University, (at the time known as City College, before they became an accredited institution. Norm helped develop some of the organizations early programs and was responsible for their direct marketing efforts.
Norm took this experience and founded Northwest Center for Professional Education in the 1980’s. This educational organization presented one day seminars and two day conferences targeted towards legal, finance and tax issues in construction. Fueled by “Reaganomics” and the real estate boom Northwest Center found great success and at its peak sponsored had 60 full time employees putting on 350+ events per year supported by 15 million pieces of yearly direct mail.
During this time Norm brought one of early Didde web presses to the Northwest and made significant contributions to the success of a few Seattle area mail houses and printers. Norm was one of the early Seattle Direct Marketing Association members and involved in many of their committees and events. These were truly “early days” in Seattle direct marketing with a very small, tight knit DM community.
Marketry was formed at the same time as Northwest Center and initially operated as the in-house list broker for the seminar company. Marketry quickly expanded into a full service direct marketing agency, but reverted back to its primary list brokerage function after a few years.
I went to work for my father in the early 90’s, shortly there after he sold the seminar and conference company to what was, at the time one of the world’s largest information providers, Institute for International Research. He kept Marketry and broke it out as a fully independent company. I continued on with the new owner and then went to work for a few different print and mail houses.
Marketry continue to grow throughout the 90’s, opening offices in Los Angeles and New York and expanding in Seattle repeatedly moving to larger offices. I came back to work with my dad in the mid 90’s and became an integral part of Marketry. Over time the out of state businesses were sold and the company focused on core competencies from our headquarter office.
Marketry continues to evolve and is now very active in online media, online lead generation and many other newer forms of lead generation. I’m proud to be able to continue on with the company that my father left me and look forward to many more years in the Northwest marketing community.
Marketry’s involvement in the Northwest direct marketing community goes back to the early 1970’s when my father, Norm Swent was hired as a program developer and marketing consultant for City University, (at the time known as City College, before they became an accredited institution. Norm helped develop some of the organizations early programs and was responsible for their direct marketing efforts.
Norm took this experience and founded Northwest Center for Professional Education in the 1980’s. This educational organization presented one day seminars and two day conferences targeted towards legal, finance and tax issues in construction. Fueled by “Reaganomics” and the real estate boom Northwest Center found great success and at its peak sponsored had 60 full time employees putting on 350+ events per year supported by 15 million pieces of yearly direct mail.
During this time Norm brought one of early Didde web presses to the Northwest and made significant contributions to the success of a few Seattle area mail houses and printers. Norm was one of the early Seattle Direct Marketing Association members and involved in many of their committees and events. These were truly “early days” in Seattle direct marketing with a very small, tight knit DM community.
Marketry was formed at the same time as Northwest Center and initially operated as the in-house list broker for the seminar company. Marketry quickly expanded into a full service direct marketing agency, but reverted back to its primary list brokerage function after a few years.
I went to work for my father in the early 90’s, shortly there after he sold the seminar and conference company to what was, at the time one of the world’s largest information providers, Institute for International Research. He kept Marketry and broke it out as a fully independent company. I continued on with the new owner and then went to work for a few different print and mail houses.
Marketry continue to grow throughout the 90’s, opening offices in Los Angeles and New York and expanding in Seattle repeatedly moving to larger offices. I came back to work with my dad in the mid 90’s and became an integral part of Marketry. Over time the out of state businesses were sold and the company focused on core competencies from our headquarter office.
Marketry continues to evolve and is now very active in online media, online lead generation and many other newer forms of lead generation. I’m proud to be able to continue on with the company that my father left me and look forward to many more years in the Northwest marketing community.