Analyze this
Imagine a 24/7, real-time focus group one that gives you access to a customer's every move. Imagine sitting upon the shopper's shoulders as he views your...
Blog-rolling
Pundits of the Chicken Little school are warning that blogs will kill advertising and PR as we know it. With just a few keystrokes, an anonymous blogger...
The Dilemma of Two Masters: Marketing and Sales
"Marketing staffers sometimes try to have salespeople help them profile customers. 'After all,' they think, 'the salespeople know their customers better than anyone else, so why shouldn't they fill in their demographics or firmographics?'" notes Bill Singleton, president of Algonquin, IL-based database marketing consultancy Singleton Marketing. But they forget that no one can serve two masters at the same time. Salespeople are paid for selling, not demographic profiling, just as marketing staffers are paid for planning, promoting and tracking but not for pushing products....
The USPS Submits 5.4 % Postal Rate Increase
The U.S. Postal Service today filed a 5.4% postal rate increase on almost all classes and subclasses of mail and special services. ...
The Rules of E-mail Engagement
Each communication/campaign should be assigned a very specific objective: sales, education, relationship-building, customer service, what-have-you. Once you’ve determined the objective for each campaign, you can assign the rules to each....
The Web as Lead Generator
Marketers often mistakenly ask for the sale on the first communication with a prospect without knowing anything about the person. The need to hit aggressive revenue numbers leads them to forget about ...
The USPS Wants (to Help) You
In November 2004, the U.S. Postal Service established the Pricing and Classification Service Center (PCSC) in New York. If you hadn't heard about it, you're not alone. But the USPS is trying to promote the services offered, which were designed to provide postal customers with decisions on mail preparation, mail piece designs, and rate eligibility....
The Four Elements of Customer Value
Far too many marketers overlook the fact that cultivating a customer base means tracking the behaviors of those customers for … well, forever. The time spent building a relationship with a given customer should optimize all phases of that customer’s life to maximize value and ultimately generate revenue. Translated, that relationship doesn’t just end. It takes a business lifetime to ensure your customers stay your customers. ...
The Five Keys to Successful Integrated Marketing
If you take a deeper look at “multichannel marketing,” you’ll quickly find that most companies are really acting as “multiple channel” merchants, says Casey K. Carey, director of data solutions marketing for New York-based data and technology solutions provider DoubleClick. That is, most have added an additional channel, primarily a Website, that is organized and operated in an independent manner. True integrated multichannel marketing is quite different from this multiple-channel approach. To achieve successful multichannel marketing integration, Carey says, you need to home in on five key areas: ...
The Year's Biggest Branding Blunders
Ready for another top-10 list? Kelly O’Keefe, chairman/CEO of Atlanta-based brand strategy firm Emergence, has put together his list of the 10 biggest branding blunders of 2004. And the winners (losers) are:...
The Year Ahead in Search
It’s the time of year when experts and pundits gaze into their tea leaves and crystal balls to predict the trends for the coming year. On the search engine marketing front, Kevin Lee, CEO of New York-based search marketing firm Did-it, issued his top 10 predictions for 2005...
Lists and Prospecting: The Times, and List Firms, Are A-Changing
In March 2004, Radcliff, KY-based U.S. Cavalry was planning on getting its catalogs back into the mail after a nearly 18-month hiatus. The cataloger of...
I.Merchant: The Skinny on Site Safety
Have you ever heard of Web application vulnerabilities, California's 1386 law, or the security requirements of MasterCard's Site Data Protection Program...
Lists and Prospecting: The Insert Media and the Message
Insert media package inserts, bind-ins, blow-ins, and the like have long been considered the ugly stepsister of prospecting methods. One reason may be...
Operations and Management: The Dunnage Balancing Act
Using too much dunnage is a waste of money, of course. But skimping on packaging materials can be costly as well: Too many orders will be arriving to...
Lists and Prospecting: The Dos and Don'ts of List Exchanges
List exchanges when mailers agree to make their lists available to each other by trading names rather than charging the usual rental fee became more accepted...
The Psychic Mailman
Imagine how much more powerful catalog distribution would be if you could employ a psychic mailman to wait outside the doors of your best customers' homes...
Survey: Nearly One-Fourth of Web Sales Incremental
According to a recent survey of cataloger/retailers, the Internet is bringing in its fair share of incremental revenue. A mean 23% of their Web sales...
The Model Student
One of a minority of catalogers that practice environmentally responsible practices, according to San Francisco-based environmental advocacy organization...
The Renaissance List Firm
LIST FIRMS HAVE EMERGED from the tough economic climate of the past few years as multifaceted service providers. Aside from traditional list rental and...
The Expected and the Unexpected
Some of the newer services offered by list firms make sense in the context of the companies' original missions. Indeed, it's not much of a stretch for...
the cybercritic
As you might imagine, the Cybercritic is a highly sought-after speaker on the Internet marketing circuit. And with Web selling and online marketing conferences,...
The Return of the Initial Public Offering
After a heyday in the mid- to late 1990s, followed by a drop off during the past three years, it seems that initial public offerings (IPOs) are making...
The Role of The Passion
Some catalogers reporting strong sales of Easter goods this year may have actor/director Mel Gibson to thank. Several mailers say that Gibson's controversial...
