Farewell to InMarketing
We suppose we should be doing victory laps. The Direct Marketing Association is pulling the plug on InMarketing, its excuse for a monthly magazine. Here's...
The New E-zine Metric
WHEN E-ZINES first came out, chief marketing officers looked at the reports and were excited about using open rates and click-throughs to measure their...
Full Disclosure
The U.S. Postal Service has a problem: It needs to improve customer relations. But that's a tall order given the uncertainty of postal reform legislation passage, the new rate case and the promise of large annual increases because of the escrow account issue....
All I Really Need to Know About CRM I Learned in Kindergarten
Robert Fulghum was right: Life's essential lessons can be gleaned from truths learned in kindergarten. The next few decades of academia are commentary...
TIMELINE
June 16, 2006 HORMEL FOODS CORP., the maker of Spam, agreed to a lawsuit settlement that would allow NetBop Technologies, a small Welsh technology firm,...
LISTLINE
NEW LISTS Chief Financial Officers This 32,840-name file is derived from multiple sources, including government registrations, trade and business groups,...
You're Fired!
Ever had to fire a customer? Bill Cole has. Cole is president of Randolph, MA-based Bill Cole Enterprises, which direct markets Mylar sleeves, backing...
Marketers Turn to Trackable Media
Mass marketing may be growing in some quarters, but not among executives surveyed by Epsilon. A poll of 175 U.S. marketers showed that most are cutting...
AOL to Customers and Mailers: And You Are?
IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING April the most recent period for which figures are available AOL lost subscribers at a clip of 258,000 a month. That's twomonth....
DMers Losing Interest in AOL Addresses
If AOL wants legitimate marketers to avoid contacting its subscribers, the plan is starting to work. E-mailers are preparing for a serious drop in performance...
Best Practices at Best Buy
Best Buy, frustrated with the speed at which its loyalty program was growing, decided on an overhaul 18 months ago. It was a good move. Since then, enrollment...
The Doctor Is In
Another humdrum night? Maybe it's time to go out and hear some live jazz in a garden conservatory setting. But where? How about the hospital? It wouldn't...
The Sweet, Sticky Smell of Success
Do you know about Diet Coke and Mentos? It's not the latest weight-loss craze. It's a Mr. Wizard science experiment gone berserk, and it's currently storming...
Somebody Gets It
AS AN OBSERVER OF THE direct marketing world, I often have experiences where I slap my head and say, Yea! They get it! There also are times when I shake...
Ready for More
DIRECT TALKED recently with consultant Kurt Medina, who specializes in the 50-plus market. He shared his thoughts about targeting boomers and seniors....
Great-West Woos Dentists
TALK ABOUT DRILLING DOWN: Great-West Life Assurance Co. increased its coverage of dentists by 7% by offering enhanced benefits and changing its list segmentation....
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
DEAD LETTER OFFICE My grandmother had her own (unique) solution to unwanted solicitations (Loose Cannon, June 1). After my grandfather died, she received...
The Hidden Gems in E-mail Responses
Any DMer knows response management is critical to a campaign's success. But in e-mail marketing, overseeing messages from those who don't buy is just...
Data Love
Vendors, take note: Direct marketers will spend an average of nearly $250,000 for database upgrades this year. And they're confident these expenditures...
So Where's the Copy?
I admit, I have to search widely for interactive ads that cry out for a makeover. Still, there always seems to be a plentiful supply of examples of advertising folly. And while the percentage of such ads may be small, the dollar waste is huge. The latest example is one that I found in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, an ad for the worldwide chain of Mandarin Oriental Hotels. It's presumably one of a series....
Plumber Turns to Postcards
WHAT DOES A LOCAL PLUMBING concern do when business starts to slow down and the Yellow Pages doesn't bring in work the way it used to? This was the problem...
Anderson Ad Wooden Win Any Response Awards
ONE OF THE COMPOSITIONS IN A RECENT AVANT-GARDE MUSIC concert was a single long deconstructed chord lasting about 10 minutes. When it had been performed previously, it was reported that cries of “I confess! I confess!” had risen from members of the audience. But this time the composition received a standing ovation. How come?...
A Boy Named Sue
News item: The nation's largest class-action law firm, Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, was recently charged with kicking back more than $11 million...
Synonyms Ain't Synonymous
Editor's note: Herschell Gordon Lewis, Direct's Curmudgeon-at-Large, is a copywriter renowned as an authority on the use of words. This is one of an occasional...
Black or White?
Welcome to Pick the Winner, a new semi-regular column in Direct. Take a look at the two creative packages and guess which one pulled best. Then go to...
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