While many financial institutions are struggling, one sector remains hot: wealth management. Targeting prospects with dollars to manage is critical to success and, at the same time, more difficult than ever because people are looking to new influencers and new sources of information to help them make investment decisions.

Spammers have jumped on the death of Michael Jackson and are sending out spam e-mails with the King of Pop in the subject line.

While a recent Knowledge Networks study found that less than 5% of users regularly turn to social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter for guidance on purchase decisions, many marketers find blogs are an effective way to reach motivated buyers.

If you win an auction but pay more for an item than you would have paid somewhere else, is that auction a success? How long can a company stay afloat if it pays more to acquire each new customer than it makes in profit? Keep these questions in mind as you set up your keyword bids. Limits must be understood in the context of profitability, compared to what you pay to acquire a customer through other channels.

Retailers who count on the 20% lift of holiday sales know they can't wait until October to formulate their seasonal sales strategy. Although consumers spent some $475 billion during the 2007 holiday season, the mixed forecasts for 2008 increase the pressure to make the holiday selling season extend beyond the traditional September-to-December window.

A recent evaluation conducted by Silverpop researchers of the e-mail practices of North America's largest online retailers revealed that some are engaging in risky strategies. In comparing e-mails sent during the same 30-day period in 2007 and 2008, the study found a sharp increase in e-mail frequency. Top retailers sent 23% more e-mails to subscribers last year than the year before. At the same time, only 28% offered subscribers choices at opt-in. This is down from 56% in 2007.

Black-out sales, free shipping days, search engine optimization, strategic link baiting—all are proven methods that can, when timed and executed well, ratchet up Web traffic. But if unprepared, dramatic traffic increases can lead to delays, hang-ups, outages, and even outright system failures that can negatively impact campaign success, as well as customer satisfaction and corporate revenue.

How is the multicultural market being affected by this adverse economy? Is this a good time to enter the multicultural market or are the risks greater right now? What can you do to raise your response level? These are all good, challenging questions but actually easy to answer.

While it may seem like the hot new software coming out these days all circulates around mobile marketing and social media, e-mail has not ceased to drive new innovation as well. The latest release, an e-mail organization tool called Xiant Filer, could prolong the life of marketing messages, giving consumers more control over how to filter the e-mail they receive.

Marketers today face great challenges in generating results, what with ever-shrinking budgets, rising expenses and limited resources. But it's also an exciting time for targeted, direct marketing to really shine.