Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q has signed Engauge as its new agency of record, replacing seven-year incumbent AdPartners Inc.

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has expanded its long-running b-to-c marketing partnership with Epsilon to include efforts aimed directly at healthcare professionals. Epsilon has been working with AstraZeneca on direct-to-consumer marketing, including e-mail and database efforts, since 2003.

Janet Rubio, chief insights officer at Engauge, discusses the evolution of CRM.

Ryanair, a discount airline based in Ireland, has partnered with Webloyalty in a move to encourage repeat customers. Through the new agreement, customers who book tickets online with Ryanair will receive a prompt at the end of the checkout process inviting them to join Webloyalty's Shopper Discounts and Rewards program.

Commercial and nonprofit mailers of US Postal Service Standard Mail high-density flats, mail pieces delivered to each address on a delivery route, will enjoy new minimum per-piece price decreases of 0.1 cent. The decreases kick in on July 19. In addition, mailers will see decreases to the pound price element that match the Standard Mail Saturation rate. The Postal Regulatory Commission approved the rate on July 1, potentially setting a new precedent on how to address a rate decrease in a period of deflation.

Most of us know the keys to direct marketing success are multifaceted and includes many — if not all — of the following techniques.
Define the goals of your program with a clear and concise call to action. Create and scrub your list.

E-mail marketing services firm StrongMail Systems has acquired PopularMedia, a social media marketing company, for an undisclosed figure. Under the terms of the agreement, PopularMedia will come under the StrongMail brand and its social media tools will become part of the StrongMail suite of digital marketing offerings.

As the automotive industry is challenged with cash strapped consumers, direct marketing agency Aspen Marketing has been working with their automotive clients to reach consumers in a more multichannel and geo-targeted way.

The industry took a significant step in the behavioral targeting and privacy debate by releasing seven best practices principles for behavioral targeting on July 2.

A group of marketing associations introduced seven best practices principles for behavioral targeting on July 2. The principles - a significant step in the behavorial targeting and privacy debate - are designed to make behavioral targeting more transparent to consumers and to educate consumers on the practices of online advertising and how behavioral data is used.

Worldata has begun managing the 64,000-name list of auto race enthusiast available through the SportsFanReview.com. Races such as NASCAR, Indy 500, Busch series, stock car and dragster are discussed and attended by the consumers on this list. SportsFanReview.com highlights significant details about national and international games, college and professional teams and features blogs and opinions about sports, along with general news of wins, losses, championships and player information.

Lapham's Quarterly, a magazine launched in 2008 and encompassing historic themes through original essays, commentary and criticism from scholars and writers, has awarded management of its list of 13,500 subscribers to ALC.

The New York Blade, a 22,000-circ gay and lesbian paper, has suspended publication. The Blade, sister title to the New England Blade — which shuttered its print edition in October 2008 — and HX Magazine, was distributed for free around New York City on a weekly and bi-weekly schedule, depending on time of year.

Vibe Media Group (VMG), parent company of Vibe and the newly launched The Most Mag, will shut down at 8pm tonight, June 30. All properties, including its Web sites, will be discontinued. Vibe, the flagship magazine, had a total paid and verified circulation of 817,825 as of December 31 — a slight drop from a high of 879,072 in 2007. Per MRI, Vibe's readership was split evenly between men and women, and median reader age was around 29.

Deliverability has been a concern for email marketers since the beginning. Email marketing is more popular than ever because of its cost-efficiency, immediacy of results and high ROI - and your reputation plays into the deliverability of your email marketing messages like never before.

New list — Legacy Learning System's Instructional Course Masterfile — Infomat — Description: This file contains motivated individuals who have placed orders online for comprehensive courses consisting of audio CDs, DVDs, printed materials and online support, priced from $219 to $249.

MasterCard kicks off a two-month multichannel ad campaign on July 1 that calls on consumers to use their MasterCard when purchasing jeans. It is designed to reach people buying jeans and encourage them to use their MasterCard for payment. The marketing program includes TV, print, online, mobile, out-of-home and radio.

Multichannel home furnishings merchant Design Within Reach Inc. has notified the NASDAQ Stock Market of its intent to voluntarily delist its common stock from NASDAQ. While the company reports that it has not received a formal notice from NASDAQ that it has failed to comply with listing standards, Design Within Reach said in a statement that it has struggled to maintain compliance with NASDAQ's minimum required bid price of $1 per share.

Print service providers are responding to one of the most challenging economic environments ever by joining forces and expanding services to compete.

Ailing printing company Quebecor World has rejected RR Donnelley & Sons latest offer to acquire it and, instead, has decided to proceed with a reorganization plan currently underway as a result of bankruptcy proceedings. Quebecor World has said it could emerge from creditor protection by mid-July.

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.

You've paid for the click and now you need to make the most of it. We asked three experts to share their secrets on how to design the best landing page so that every pay-per-click lead from a search engine turns into a buyer.