Q&As

Many direct marketers avoid targeting businesses less than three years old, writing them off as unpredictable, risky bets. Perhaps the new company’s credit file is thin, or it has high start-up costs. Or a start-up’s credit file is not considered deep enough.

Kraft Foods is pursuing partnerships with technology companies and others to build new businesses like its South Beach Diet and Tassimo brands, both of which are joint efforts with outside companies. At the same time, Kraft is testing a desktop …

Diageo-Guinness USA, Inc. is turning to its Red Stripe beer fans to produce a version of what a Super Bowl spot should look like in an online contest.

SportsBlast, the production company responsible for The Kellys, an animated series featured on NASCAR.com, will award a fan with a trip for four to the 2006 Daytona 500. The winner will receive tickets to the Feb. 19 race, as well as tickets to …

A 2006 Sundance Film Festival is the perfect locale for Chrysler to launch a film competition, in which contestants can vie for a Chrysler Crossfire. Starting Friday, the carmaker will launch Chrysler in The Movies: Virtual Film Competition with …

Trailer Park and Creative Domain have merged to form one of the largest companies handling entertainment marketing services in Hollywood. The merger brings together Trailer Park— company widely known for its theatrical trailers for major motion pictures …

IMN has launched IMN Party Pulse, a multi-tiered newsletter program for direct sales organizations. And it already has a client with 1 million subscribers: PartyLite, the direct selling company specializing in candles and accessories.

If one single word comes to mind after the holiday e-mail deluge, it is relevance. Consumers were more likely to delete unwanted e-mails or report the senders as spammers, according to a survey by Return Path Inc.

Joseph Leeb Enterprises Inc. is a small business with annual sales of $5 million. But it faced the same challenge as many larger firms: How do you communicate with customers on an ongoing basis?

Once you get comfortable with the basic key metrics, like open and click-through rates, you are ready to go more in depth. Here are two additional metrics. Dig into them, and you will have a much more thorough sense of the success of your program.