March 1, 2009
Cover Story
Qwest Uses Mail to Sell B-to-B Online Service
Internet provider Qwest is using a direct mail series to sell service to businesses. The company is targeting users of rival services....
High-Tech Direct Mail Do's an Dont's
Cathy Lang of Aspen Marketing Services offers guidelines on creating high tech direct mail campaigns. Tips include using predictive analytics and distinquising yourself from the competition....
Features
Survey Sheds Light on Vendors' B-to-B Data and Business Practices
B-to-B firms now have access to new data sources from the Internet. This, coupled with online ordering, gives marketers the ability to search fields, generate counts and place orders instantly....
Disciplines
Cross-Media Campaigns: Are They Worth the Effort?
Cross-media campaigns can offer confident managers a great opportunity to boost ROI. But don't confuse cross-media with multichannel, as their objective differ....
Assessing the Value of Word-of-Mouth Campaigns
Marketers must be able to idenfity advocates and measure impact, or word of mouth won't work. Here's how to bring hard, quantifiable data to program evaluations....
The Holes in Dunkin' Donuts' Word of Mouth Campaign
Dunkin' Donuts used word of mouth to promote a new coffee drink. Three out of four markets tested showed a lift....
Loyalty Program Members Can Help Ease Companies' Recession Sting
Loyalty program members are a marketer's best customers. So it makes sense to ensure they stick around for the inevitable economic upturn....
Financial Firms Aren't Reaching Out to Customers: Poll
A new poll shows only 30% of consumers hav been contacted by their financial firms during the recession. This flies in the face of textbook CRM....
Channels
E-mail Marketing Becomes More Customer Oriented
E-mail marketing is becomng more customer oriented, with sophisticated trigger-based approaches. Let's review past and present e-mail strategies....
Financial Woes Continue to Haunt USPS
Despite the passage of postal reform legislation a little over two yars ago, the USPS remains steeped in financial problems. No one knows how much assistance the USPS will get from Congress....
Marketers Keep Making the Same Mistakes With Affiliates
If ever there was a time when marketers need to make sure all their sales channels are humming, it's now. And online affiliate programs are no exception....
Op-Ed Columns
Direct Hit: The End of the Beginning
Stories suggest that the future of journalism is online. What will this mean for quality reporting?...
Yay! To Obama, I’m Still Stupid!
Hey everyone! I made history! I am proud to report that I am the first private citizen that I know of to have been officially called stupid in an e-mail from America’s first African American president ...
Pioneer Electronics Ad Design Obscures Product News, Says Maven
Even though texting is in vogue, young ad designers tend to shy away from words for some reason. This Pioneer ad is one such example....
In This Economy, No One Has All the Answers
The economy is bad, and crowds are down at trade shows. But what is up is the amount of people looking for answers....
You Can Quote Them…Well, More or Less
Looking back in history, one can wonder how successful certain events would have been if the principals had picked up advertising speak....
Departments
Report: Marketers Place Priority on Nurturing Existing Customers
Nuts and bolts issues like customer satisfaction and retention top marketers' list of concerns. Worrying about the long tail is a thing of the past....
Sonic Sees Success With Mobile Marketing Test
Drive-in restaurant chain Sonic may be doing more text message marketing after a succcessful test last fall. The trial drew a 3% response....
E-mail Population is Aging: Survey
A recent Pew serveysays 74% of all Web users overage 64 user e-mail. It is the most popular online activity for this group....
Letters: Where's the Good News?
As someone relatively new to the industry, I appreciate that Direct helps me understand other facets of direct marketing besides what's day-to-day in...
