CRM

• Agencies

  Creativity Substitutes for Data in the Gay Market

  Marketing to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community isn’t as difficult as quantifying the market. That was one conclusion you could draw from the Reaching Out conference held in February by students at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Yale School of Management.

• Agencies

  Short-Term Behavior, Long-Term Value

  Direct marketers put a huge amount of time and money into examining, testing, analyzing, and fine-tuning their marketing on a campaign-by-campaign basis. The results of a single campaign are judged by response rates, average spend amounts, and often, the ROI generated by that campaign.

• Agencies

  Merchants, Consumers Have Different Priorities

  While merchants and their customers believe that superior customer service is extremely important, the two differ on the most important customer service elements, according to a new national survey conducted by the NRF Foundation, an arm of the National Retail Federation, and the American Express Co.

• Agencies

  Web Buyers, Catalog Buyers: Together but Not Equal

  According to CATALOG AGE’s Benchmark Report on Operations, which will appear in the April issue, a mean 35.5% of catalogers’ orders come via the Web. So it stands to reason that Internet buyers account for a growing share of catalogers’ print circulation

• Agencies

  Emotional Relationships Gives Marketers a License

  Having an emotional bond gives a marketer a license to go places with a consumer they wouldn’t be welcome otherwise. As an example of this, Bob Wallach, senior vice president of marketing, refrigerated division, ConAgra Foods, cited the Walt Disney Company. Disney used the warm feelings the public had for its characters to make the leap from movies to theme parks to a myriad of other opportunities like cruise ships.

• Agencies

  The Three Faces of Consumer-Focused Innovation The Three Faces of Consumer-Focused Innovation The Three Faces of Consumer-Focused Innovation The Three Faces of Consumer-Focused Innovation The Three Faces of Consumer-Focused Innovaiton

  Meeting the consumer’s current needs isn’t enough to guarantee success. According to Forrester Research, a marketer must also anticipate future needs. In a recently released report, Forrester analyst Christine Spivey Overby dubs this proactive approach “consumer-focused innovation” and outlines its three basic principles

• Agencies

  10 Ways to Get the Most from Co-op Databases

  Cooperative databases such as Abacus, I-Behavior, NextAction, Z-24, and Prefer account for more than half of the prospecting done by small and midsize catalogers, according to Stephen R. Lett, a Bethany Beach, DE-based direct marketing consultant. Why? Because these prospect names perform well and represent a good value for the money.

• Agencies

  Measuring Incremental Vs. Overall Response

  When measuring the effectiveness of a promotion, the focus should always be on the incremental order activity that is generated by the promotion, according to Jim Wheaton, a principle with Chapel Hill, NC-based database solutions firm Wheaton Group. The overall order activity during the promotion’s “response window,” he says, is irrelevant.

• Agencies

  Data In or Data Out?

  Database management is a complex process that can make or break a marketing program. Some companies handle database management in-house, and others have

• Agencies

  Short-Term Behavior, Long-Term Value

  Direct marketers put a huge amount of time and money into examining, testing, analyzing, and fine-tuning their marketing on a campaign-by-campaign basis. The results of a single campaign are judged by response rates, average spend amounts, and often, the ROI generated by that campaign. But less attention has been given to the long-term behavior of customers, says Don Austin, Ph.D., director of client strategy at Greenwich, CT-based list services firm Direct Media. In general, the amount of the first transaction predicts the amount of subsequent transactions. But Austin a variety of other variables can be used to segment customers into low long-term value and high long-term value groups.