How to Increase Email Response Rates

| MCM staff

Even though email marketing still the top driver for ecommerce, email messages can easily get lost amid the inbox clutter. So we asked 12 b-to-b and b-to-c email marketing experts the following question: What are you doing to increase email response rates? Here are their answers.

Brian Dunn is Done at Best Buy

| Tim Parry

Brian Dunn has resigned as director and CEO of Best Buy. Dunn’s resignation came just two weeks after the electronics merchant announced plans to close 50 big box stores, open 100 Best Buy Mobile stores and grow its online business.

R.R. Donnelley Acquires Equity Stake in CoffeeTable

| Jim Tierney

CoffeeTable offers a discovery-based tablet shopping experience for consumers to browse and shop across multiple retailers and provides a comprehensive set of data analytics to help drive retailers’ multichannel marketing strategies.

HSN Acquires Chasing Fireflies

| Tim Parry

Crosschannel retailer HSN has acquired upscale children’s apparel seller Chasing Fireflies, and will make it a part of the Cornerstone Brands operating segment. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but HSN has said Chasing Fireflies will continue to operate as an independent brand.

How to Determine a DRTV Strategy

| Shari Altman

DRTV can be enticing to direct response marketers because of its presence in all of our lives and to be blunt. When it works well, it can be incredibly profitable because of its broad reach. Unfortunately, when it doesn

Executive Roundtable: Presidents and CEOs Talk Critical Topics

| Jim Tierney

We convened a diverse group of 10 presidents and CEOs for a roundtable discussion at the NEMOA Conference, held in Boston on March 14. The list of topics included the economy, the potential impact of a presidential election year, viral videos, the role of the catalog, Amazon, mobile and tablet strategies, corrugated packaging, the need for speed, discounting, and building online communities. Here’s which executives attended, and what they had to tell us.

Survey: Socially-conscious Consumers Consult Social Media

| Erin Lynch

Merchants and retailers should look no further than to a recent Nielsen survey of 28,000 internet users when trying to figure out how they should spread the word about their brand. According to the Global Corporate Citizenship Survey, 63% of the global, socially conscious respondents are under the age of 40 and consult with the social media of their choice when deciding on what items to purchase.

Continuing the Customer Conversation In-Store and Online

| Jim Davidson

With consumers practically attached to mobile devices and beginning to accept marketing messages on Facebook and Twitter, marketing efforts are less about driving to a specific channel and more about having a promotional presence in all of them and keeping the person engaged throughout the customer lifecycle. The reasons for disengaging from a purchase decision are nearly infinite, and the means to disengage are just a few taps away on a smartphone. Here’s how you can continue the customer experience between the store and the ecommerce site.