LifeMinders, the Herndon-based provider of e-mail-based information and direct marketing services, announced a deal yesterday with the nation's largest Visa-card issuer to offer credit cards online.

LifeMinders, the Herndon-based provider of e-mail-based information and direct marketing services, announced a deal yesterday with the nation's largest Visa-card issuer to offer credit cards online. Under the agreement, LifeMinders will pitch First USA Visa cards to the 18 million registered recipients of its customized e-mail information. Specific terms weren't disclosed, but LifeMinders CEO Steve Chapin described it as a multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal that will be a "large . . . contributor" to LifeMinders revenues in the quarters to come. The First USA deal is part of a LifeMinders push to attract more offline companies as advertisers, a list that now includes Kemper Insurance and Johnson & Johnson, in addition to technology companies such as AT&T Wireless. The First USA Visa card offers will be embedded into the personalized e-mail messages LifeMinders sends to subscribers--everything from birthday reminders to health and fitness tips to pet-care suggestions--based on their self-described interests. Eventually, the companies plan to use these profiles to target pitches for First USA's affinity cards to individual LifeMinders subscribers based on their interests. Also yesterday, influential Merrill Lynch & Co. technology analyst Henry Blodget began coverage of LifeMinders, giving the company an "accumulate/buy" rating. Blodget, who was an early enthusiast of Internet companies such as Amazon.com, predicted in a report that LifeMinders would see earnings of 36 cents a share in 2001, but that the number could be as high as 75 cents a share if all goes well.