March 2008
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DIRECT Newsline
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| Success? It's in the Mail |
Success magazine is hoping to see at least a 3% response from a subscription-building mailing tied to its relaunch this month. The Dallas-based bimonthly...
By Larry Riggs |
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| TUNE TOWN |
To some, Branson, MO evokes images of country music and seniors on bus tours. But the Ozarks-area city has much more to offer. And the Branson Lakes...
By Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| What's Working, What's Not |
The great thing about marketing is that there's always loads of new ideas coming down the pike. For some, there might even be more possibilities than...
By Ruth P. Stevens |
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Features
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| Calling All Students… |
DeVry University recently sent a mailing to 1.1 million potential students as part of an ongoing rebranding effort. The drop went out in January and...
Larry Riggs |
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| Listline |
NEW LISTS OK! Magazine Eight segments from OK! magazine's circulation file are available from Northern & Shell North America Ltd. One is a list of 234,771...
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Op-Ed Columns
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| Not So Fast… |
Oh, the joy. The U.S. Postal Service has announced a May 12 rate increase. But it's modest as postage hikes go. At deadline, the DMA's Jerry Cerasale...
RAY SCHULTZ |
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| The Great ‘Brand’ Controversy |
I know just when it was that I found myself in the midst of the brand-vs.-direct argument. Well, make that battle, because opinions and tempers blow...
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS |
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Direct.com
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| Churn Away |
All industries suffer from voluntary churn — the loss of customers to some other company. But some get hit worse than others. Take the telecommunications...
By Arthur Middleton Hughes |
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General
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| And They'll Tell Two Friends… |
As the old expression goes, it doesn't matter what they say as long as they spell your name right. But in word-of-mouth marketing that isn't necessarily...
By Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder |
On winter weekends when it's too cold, rainy or snowy to play outside, I'm constantly searching for places to take my kids so they can burn off some...
BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS |
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| Blue Jean Buzz |
Godes cited Lee Jeans as one company that generated terrific word of mouth for its brand. A few years ago the company connected with players on online...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Channel Choices |
These days marketers certainly don't have a shortage of ways to connect with their audiences: Blogs. Podcasts. Social networks. Search. But which channel...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Cold Call |
For reasons that will soon be obvious, I'm hiding the subject of this column behind the name “Susan Donym.” On the evening of Jan. 2, Sue...
RICHARD H. LEVEY |
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| Database Spendthrifts |
DMers may be spending less on some things this year, but not on database systems and analytics. A new survey from Alterian shows that 67% of the companies...
Richard H. Levey |
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| Divide and Conquer |
When I talk to my Southern friends, my voices changes. I speak slower. I tone down my New York accent. I ditch the East Coast sarcasm. When I talk to...
By Audrey Rasizer |
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| E-mail Opt-outs: An Uneasy Balance |
Most direct marketers seriously mishandle opt-outs from their e-mail files, two recent studies show. For one thing, a majority admit to burying opt-out...
By Ken Magill |
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| Get to Know…DMAA |
WHAT Direct Marketing Association of Atlanta MEMBERSHIP Some 100 marketers and DM industry vendors WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN The group recently became an independent...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Jack's Facts |
At the DMA's recent Catalog on the Road Day in Cambridge, MA, Jack Rosenfeld told the audience that decades ago someone asked him what direct marketers'...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Letters to the Editor |
‘If It's Audio Spam, It's Gone’ Ruth P. Stevens quoted several interesting people in her piece about voice-mail marketing (“Start Talking,”...
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| Love by the Book |
So how was your Valentine's Day? If you live in Alexandria, VA, Cambridge, MA or Miami, chances are it was pretty steamy. Or at least well researched....
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Oh, Oprah |
Sometimes our mail just makes us laugh. Take a recent mailing we received from O magazine. What's the first thing we read on the letter? Market Development...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Price Point, Price Counterpoint |
What's a direct marketer to do when the CFO insists on raising prices to boost quarterly revenue? Assault is frowned on in most workplaces. So the best...
By Richard H. Levey |
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| Run, Coffee Drinker, Run! |
Dunkin' Donuts' online marketing is percolating this winter with the launch of a YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/dunkindonuts)...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Straight Advice for Tough Times |
If you're a multichannel marketer in challenging economic times, it pays to think beyond your own four walls…or two covers…or URL…or...
By Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Stupid E-mail Watch |
Recently I received what has to be one of the most ignorant e-mail campaigns in the short history of the medium. It came in the form of spam from Bing...
KEN MAGILL |
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| Swimming Upstream |
Not sure whether to put in-stream ads in your online video content? Consider this: A recent survey by Burst Media found that 50.7% of respondents stop...
Beth Negus Viveiros |
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| Traffic Report |
As an online marketer, what keeps you up at night? For a lot of us it's the debate over whether to invest our limited promotional budget in search engine...
By Brian Lewis |
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| War of Words |
Ron Paul's (failed?) presidential campaign certainly demonstrated online fundraising prowess. But good old-fashioned direct mail played a highly unusual...
Ken Magill |
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| What's the Message? |
A big part of the pleasure of reading the latest New Yorker magazine each week has always been its great cartoons. And more often than not there's at...
THOMAS L. COLLINS |
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