• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 20, 2021

Disruption often comes with mergers and acquisitions, at least temporarily, but not for Data Axle USA, which announced it acquired Exact Data earlier this month.

Chris Paczak, CMO at MobilityWorks, a large retailer of wheelchair-accessible vehicles with 95 company-owned stores and four manufacturing facilities in the U.S., worked with both prior to the acquisition.

He is looking forward to working with both in the future. His company uses data that provides insights into wheelchair users and subsequent ailments, as well as marketing products that can target those consumers.

"We use both companies, each for different reasons," Paczak said. "Data Axle we've used to look at new markets and acquisitions, but we use Exact Data data for niche, customer specific with access to high-quality data lists." 

There are 3.6 million wheelchair users in the United States. It’s a very targeted market.

“Through these data companies we’re able to provide consumers with vehicle and upgrade options,” he said.

MobilityWorks works with automobile manufacturers like Ford, Honda, and Toyota, among others. Paczak has been a client of Data Axle USA and Exact Data for years, since 2014.

“We’re targeting a new market where we will place a physical store, and plan to partner with the companies to discover all of the self-disclosed wheelchair users in that area,” he said. “We will begin target marketing either through direct mail, as well as email, digital online, and direct television.”

Awareness isn’t the challenge, but rather awareness of affordability for the vans. There’s a preconceived notion that these vehicles are expensive and not attainable by the general population of wheelchair users.

Mark Cullinane, president of Local Marketing Solutions at Data Axle USA, said the needs of companies like MobilityWorks contributed to the reason for the acquisition of Exact Data, which provides multichannel direct marketing solutions. The company has been a client of Data Axle USA for many years prior to the acquisition.

Through the acquisition, Data Axle USA can now offer a comprehensive set of data-driven marketing solutions for the SMB market. This acquisition also substantially expands the Data Axle USA client base, bolstering its SMB client count to more than 40,000 organizations.

It’s not yet clear if the brand name, Exact Data will survive or roll into Data Axle USA, Cullinane said. “For now, we will have a ‘powered by Data Axle USA’ tag on products,” he said.

Larry Organ, Exact Data founder, will remain as general manager of SMB at Data Axle, reporting to Cullinane.

He said the company plans to move more services to the cloud to follow the market’s needs.