Recent Articles
March 28, 2008
It's a reality now that marketers and their DM partners are feeling the effects of shifting, even declining, budgets, and many are nimbly making tweaks to their business models. InfoUSA is like many others who are grappling with the slowing growth of the direct mail business, and it has worked to build up its technological capabilities, enhancing the power of its database offerings.
March 14, 2008
I've had several interesting conversations over the past couple of weeks pondering a tricky subject: What is the definition of a DM agency? It used to be easier to define. Mostly, they were defined by what they were not — the branding ad agency, which controlled and advocated for broadcast spend. These were the data guys, who liked to send stuff through the mail.
March 07, 2008
Browsing the blogosphere in the wake of Costco's announcement of increased profits and same-store sales, I'm reminded — if there were ever any doubt — that customer satisfaction and loyalty is so often directly proportionate to customer service values.
February 29, 2008
Given the faith that so many people are holding in the robustness and growth potential of Internet advertising, it's somewhat understandable that the news of Google's decline in paid clicks, according to last week's ComScore report, had many observers adopting a falling sky mentality.
February 22, 2008
Two pieces of research came out last week that attempted to quantify some of the impact the credit crunch has had on the direct marketing world. Synovate's Mail Monitor subsidiary cited a 14% year-on-year decrease in credit card direct mail volume in Q4 2007. And Mintel Comperemedia brings in a more nuanced point that the annual decrease in credit card solicitations to non-customers from 2006 to 2007 is 11%, but loyalty-based offers sent to current customers actually increased by 16%.
February 15, 2008
As the tributes pour in for Andi Emerson, the indomitable founder of the John Caples Awards who passed away last week, we are given the opportunity to mull the importance of creativity in the DM world — one that is often seen from the outside to be made up of cold facts, numbers and little else.
February 08, 2008
There's an interesting square dance going on in the airline world, with Delta Air Lines and Northwest getting serious about merger talks while Continental Airlines and United parent UAL Corp. are said to be pondering a deal of their own to avoid being dwarfed by such an entity.
February 01, 2008
As retailers hunker down and pray that consumers use their tax rebates for shopping sprees rather than socking them away, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are headed toward a recessionary climate. Few retailers are bullish presently, and headlines of cost-cutting, job-pruning and consolidation have spread across a whole range of retail sectors.
January 30, 2008
There are few disciplines that can claim to underpin the very fabric of the direct marketing world like the successful management of lists and databases. The use of these tools can single-handedly mean the success or failure of a marketing initiative, from the smallest, most highly targeted acquisition effort to the grandest scheme. The professionals who work for the lists and database service providers live, sleep and breathe information and, in this guide, they share their best practices and worst-case scenarios.
January 25, 2008
Following the recent beginning-of-the-year prognostications that marketing analysts shared, you'd be forgiven for predicting that 2008 might be a slightly quieter year for marketing M&A than the blockbuster year that was 2007. But last week's news that InfoUSA was acquiring the highly respected firm Direct Media not only started the year off with a decent bang; it also yielded a promise from chairman and CEO Vin Gupta that the industry would further fuse. Not many people could convincingly state that a key corporate strategy was to "consolidate the direct marketing industry," but Gupta definitely has the heft to be one of them.