Q&As

Car sales can be very competitive. But you can’t rest on your laurels even after you’ve made the sale. You have to keep the customer coming back. That’s the challenge faced by St. Louis-based Lou Fusz Automotive Network in 2003.

PTC, a firm that offers product lifecycle management tools, noticed something a year or two ago: Several of its value-added resellers were sending e-mail newsletters to their customers. But they varied in quality.

How many people really believe that their health care provider cares about their health? That was the challenge faced by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and its parent company Wellpoint.

Don Peppers and Martha Rogers maintain that “Return on Customer Value is in fact that rarest of things in business—a truly new idea.” I would like to thank them for the compliment because my clients, my agency and I seemed to recognize and use long-term customer value, and even wrote about it long before they did.

The latest version of Continental Airlines’ One-Pass newsletter reflects a deep customer file, a mandate to save money — and ultimately a desire to offer passengers more pertinent communications.

Most retail loyalty programs are alike, and many are failing in their basic mission. Consumers and retailers are feeling disillusioned, but the programs are not the problem. It’s the mindset behind them.

Direct marketing in the United States will generate $1.85 trillion in 2005, 7%of the country’s $26 trillion total sales, according to a new study released by the Direct Marketing Association.

The former president of e-mail concern Yesmail is launching a Web analytics consultancy, and he plans on building a network of stay-at-home marketing moms to do it.

The Direct Marketing Association’s conference roster might be lighter by one entry next year.
Insert Media Day, an event focusing on alternative print media, may be postponed for six months while the DMA’s Insert Media council reevaluates the event. That would move it to March 2007.

The board of directors of the Direct Marketing Association voted on Monday to require that all DMA members begin using e-mail authentication protocols.