Jim Gilbert and the Florida Direct Marketing Association are pleased to announce…

Business Networking in the 21st Century

Come join us for lunch January 15th for an informative session on how to build your personal brand using web 2.0 online techniques with Jim Gilbert, CEO of Gilbert Direct Marketing. In a world where the average…

Read more at The Florida Direct Marketing Association http://www.fdma.org

Perchance to Dream (of New Customers and Untapped Riches)

Last night I had a dream… I had a vision of many customers. Not just any customers, but the most coveted buyers of them all…mail order buyers!

And behold, they bought often and recently, and liked to purchase many products at a time. They loved these products so much that they would never consider returning them. They liked to purchase in a specific category – they were niche buyers. A plentiful niche that was easily identifiable, a specific targeted market – the lowest hanging fruit from the tree!

“Bailout” is the new, “free”!

This just in: According to 2 independent sources, Forestry and Saturn Research, the word “bailout” has overtaken “free” as the most used marketing term.

According to Saturn Research, “The term FREE, for many years reigned supreme as the most important response compelling tool a marketer could use. But no longer! Now that the word “bailout has entered our national lexicon it has been used to the point of beating out it’s competition on an order of 2:1 this holiday season.”

Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday!

Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday!  Enjoy.   I may add a few posts between now and the new year so use that RSS feed function.  Otherwise, I’ll speak to you next year.  And thanks for your support.  In the last 5 weeks I’ve been publishing this blog, you have made it a success [...]

NCDM 2008 Recap: The Key Concepts All direct Marketers Must Know!

Having attended many of the sessions and keynotes at the 2008 National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM) conference in Kissimmee, Fla., last week, I came away with three key points that proved to be the overriding themes of the three-day event. 1. Know me and be relevant…. 2. Engagement is the new black…. 3. Triggered campaigns offer the promise of one-to-one communication…. read more…

Why you must always be networking – and Linkedin is the key (part 3)

o you want to be a power networker? In this economy, you need to cultivate as many positive connections as you can.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve discussed the networking site LinkedIn and how it can be an enormous benefit in helping you expand your sphere of influence.

This week, in the last of this series (for part 1, click here, and for part 2, click here), I detail how you can use your LinkedIn homepage to its fullest advantage; think of it as a résumé on steroids.

Why you must always be networking – and Linkedin is the key (part 2)

These days, I’m always networking. I’m on MySpace and Facebook, and have just started to play around with Twitter and other less known networking sites. Even Plaxo has gotten into the social and business networking game.

But I find LinkedIn to be the best networking tool to use by far. Most LinkedIn users already know how to link to other people in and out of their networks. I wrote about the beginner stuff about a year ago.

That said, there are LinkedIn users and then there are LinkedIn players.

Happy Holidays… You’re fired!

Happy Holidays…You’re fired!!! Last year for Catalog Success Magazine, I wrote a scathing attack on downsizing after reading about Lillian Vernon letting go of 100 employees a mere five days before Christmas. And without any warning! And not just seasonal employees either!

Could there be a more despicable act?