Channel | Direct Marketing | Print

Lend an ear to John Greco

On Monday, Adam Vitale pleaded guilty in a federal court to filling the inboxes of 1.2 million AOL subscribers with spam e-mails in less than a week in August 2005, thereby violating anti-spam laws. The Brooklyn man was caught making...

This week, Meet the Broker features Jerry Connaughton, an up and coming list broker. He spent two years brokering lists in the early 1990s, left, and came back again to the business. He now makes recommendations for publishing and fundraising clients.

Brookstone

In search engine marketing, the consumer’s attention is largely focused on three or four items at the top of a search results page. Getting into those high impact slots requires knocking someone else out… and doing it in a completely fluid environment where minute by minute adjustments and multiple factors keep the head-to-head action going…

The key to operating a financially sound loyalty program, of course, is to model the financial results before launch. While your analysis must contain basic assumptions about enrollment, funding, program operating costs, retention benefits and increased yield potential, you’ll still find it extremely useful.

In recent years, the role of DRTV has evolved to include increasing overall brand/product awareness, sometimes creating a market where there wasn’t one before.

While not entirely mainstream, terms like blogging, RSS and wikis are increasingly being discussed in marketing blogs and ezines. Social Media is here to stay, and marketers ignoring this trend are missing out on an important new communications medium.

While the most sophisticated direct marketers have applied for decades statistical modeling techniques for teasing out subtle insights to optimize catalog and direct mail investment, the majority of traditional retailers who evolved into equally robust direct merchants through their e-commerce and e-mail investments have remained on the outside looking in.

According to a loyalty program census from Colloquy, the average American household belongs to 12 reward or recognition programs, but is active in only five. The biggest factor in consumer apathy is a lack of relevant communication from the marketer. A look at my own dozen memberships affirms this.