April 2007
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DIRECT Newsline
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| Three-Point Landing Pages |
From search and display ads to e-mail campaigns, print ads, direct response TV and even direct mail, direct marketers are driving prospects to the Web...
By Brian Quinton |
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| Time Management |
For a venture that's built around time, Calendars.com doesn't have much of it. “It's an extremely seasonal business,” says Hilarie Pozesky,...
By Brian Quinton |
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| Virgin Plays Loyalty Tune |
Cancel the funeral for the retail music business. Virgin Megastores has created a rewards program that it hopes will stem music downloads and drive audiophiles...
By Richard H. Levey |
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| Walking on Sunshine |
Women's shoe seller Aerosoles is developing a cross-channel database that integrates customer information from catalog, Web and retail channels. “We...
By Beth Negus Viveiros |
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Features
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| Listline |
NEW LISTS NASCAR/Racing Enthusiasts Network — Race Attendees This is a list of 376,436 who attended NASCAR events. A typical fan is 42 years old...
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Op-Ed Columns
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| A Dumb Call |
April may have been the cruelest month to T.S. Eliot, but for DMers — especially those that send catalogs — it's May this year. That's when...
RAY SCHULTZ |
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| Unstuck in the Mud |
I'm thinking of trimming the number of my credit cards down to six or seven. Silly, isn't it? Theoretically, nobody needs more than two credit cards...
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS |
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General
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| An Urgent Wake-Up Call |
The word is out. The Postal Regulatory Commission has issued a schedule of recommended rates that could very well be the death knell for some of our...
By Gene A. Del Polito |
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| Anti-Spammers Get Personal |
Ralph Penton is one of the angriest people I've ever interviewed. And if the story he tells is remotely true, he has every right to be as outraged as...
KEN MAGILL |
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| Blender Ad Doesn't Quite Blend |
Quick. If you were paging through a magazine and came across this Breville blender ad, what would your impression be in the first five or 10 seconds?...
THOMAS L. COLLINS |
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| Buried Mobile and the Double Dip |
A few weeks ago, embarrassed by my 98-pound weakling of a mobile phone, I gave in to techno-lust and stopped by my wireless carrier's local outlet to...
BRIAN QUINTON |
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| By the Pound? |
Forget about those silly blinking Cartoon Network signs that caused so much hubbub in Boston. Marketing campaigns crying for our attention in public...
BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS |
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| Click the Vote |
If the 2008 presidential candidates really want to reach voters, they'll focus their attention online. Sure, TV, radio and newspapers are still important....
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| CRAZY DUDES |
It's impossible not to watch. A man in a white lab coat, safety glasses and a blissed-out grin stares straight into the camera holding a wooden garden...
By Brian Quinton |
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| Custom Fit |
When considering a new delivery vehicle for an insert marketing campaign, don't think one size fits all. Customizing the piece to suit a particular format...
By Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Cutting Channel Conflict |
Channel conflict can be a huge stumbling block on the way to B-to-B integrated marketing success. Here are some tactics that might work for you. ...
M. H. “Mac” McIntosh |
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| Direct Asks… |
What have you bought recently by direct response? I'm a true mail order junkie, and a very eclectic one. Recently I've bought wool trousers cuffed and...
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| Easier Said Than Done |
It sounds deceptively simple. To increase business-to-business leads and sales, all you have to do is make four rights: right people, right offer, right...
By M. H. “Mac” McIntosh |
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| Get Acquainted |
If you want to use data to enhance product offerings, it's essential to know what you're working with. Consider the following practices: Cast...
Rick Ferguson |
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| Get to Know…CADM |
WHAT Chicago Association of Direct Marketing MEMBERSHIP Some 1,300 individual members (including marketers from the client side), vendors, suppliers,...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| How Non-DMers Measure Up |
It's easy to see what Canadian consumers got from a recent Bank of Nova Scotia sweepstakes. More than 90 who registered at a special Web site won free...
By Richard H. Levey |
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| Insert Success Here |
Zed Marketing Group president Jim Zuckermandel offers the following insert marketing do's and don'ts: Test, test, test. Just because a catalog...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Letters to the Editor |
JUST ANOTHER SCAM Credit card companies rewarding loyalty? Hardly! It's all a big moneymaking scam for them (Curmudgeon-at-Large, February). The “reward”...
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| Met's CRM Punks Out |
“I don't understand it,” Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten said after record label EMI, outraged by the band's behavior, voided its contract....
RICHARD H. LEVEY |
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| Most Maligned Metric? |
The open rate is one of the most cited, and yet derided, metrics in e-mail marketing. And both for good reason: On the surface it seems straightforward...
By Ken Magill |
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| Pod Goes the Con |
Don't you hate it when you can't get to an important convention? Reed Exhibitions' new podcasting venture will bring the con to you year-round. The Norwalk,...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Running Scared |
They're here. The new postal rates, debated for almost a year, are scheduled to hit May 14. And they're reasonable, unless you happen to be a catalog...
By Larry Riggs |
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| Shopping Advice |
At one time or another, most marketers need a vendor to handle some aspect of their creative work. But how does one find the right partner? What's the...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Stone Age DM |
Another giant is gone. Bob Stone, a self-described “depression kid” who co-founded one of the great direct marketing ad agencies, died last...
Ray Schultz |
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| The Data Squad |
The list compiling game isn't as easy as it used to be. Once upon a time, yellow pages and public records served as almost one-stop-shopping destinations...
By Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| The Next Level |
Dollars-and-cents ROI isn't the only important metric for a data-driven company to consider when evaluating a loyalty program's success. Indeed, the...
By Rick Ferguson |
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| Theater Vet's New Role |
Angela Mitchell always loved theater. She performed all sorts of roles over the years, learning firsthand about the anguish suffered not only by actors...
Larry Riggs |
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| Unsubscribe? It's a Matter of Trust |
‘Click here to unsubscribe’…‘To stop receiving this newsletter, reply with ‘remove’ in the subject line'…‘To...
By Joshua Baer |
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| Web 2.0 Users Hold the Cards |
Shopping for new Web 2.0 jargon? How about ‘communitainment,’ coined by investment bank Piper Jaffray to describe the convergence of communication...
Brian Quinton |
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| Web Video: DIY for the Little Guy |
Maybe you're convinced that Web video is worth your company's marketing attention because YouTube drew more viewers than all the network TV Web sites...
Brian Quinton |
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| What Were They Thinking? |
Last May the U.S. Postal Service filed a rate case that kicked off 10 months of hearings before the Postal Rate Commission — and much speculation....
By Charley Howard |
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