How to Easily and Cost Effectively Add Video to Your Marketing Arsenal

What Can Video Do for You?
Video is a perfect social media marketing channel for engagement. Here are some tips on WHAT to shoot:

Beyond…

Three years and 75,000 words later…

Note from Jim. This week marks my 3 year anniversary of my column for All About ROI (formerly Catalog Success) magazine. Here is the anniversary article. Hope you enjoy my favorites “best of” articles referenced. But before moving forward, I wanted to take a look back at some of my more memorable columns of the past three years with some thoughts sprinkled here and there on how they relate to today’s environment.

My very first column was

Guest Post – 7 Secrets to Scoring High on Data Card Quality

Note from Jim. Chris DeMartine from NextMark sent me this article for review.  I liked it and decided to publish it for you.  NextMark is the premier resource for the list industry with info on over 60,000 lists.  It’s the go to site for list brokers, managers and data providers.  All direct marketers should be [...]

Welcome to 2009, the Year of Engagement, Social Marketing and Web 2.0, Part 1 & 2 (updated)

With social media strongly in play (whether you like it or not), you don’t get to choose what’s said about your brand. Control of your brand image has been passed, torch-style, from the marketing department to your customers.

Your customers are becoming more and more voracious in their pursuit of information that’s not simply put forth by brands, but spread by their peers as brand advocates. Actually, it’s more like brand advocates and brand detractors.

Social Media Rules (of engagement) To Live By

Over in the linkedin group I manage, (Direct Marketing Questions & Answers), we’ve been having a discussion on the zig vs. zag nature of direct marketing and social media.

In essence, the theory is this: with everybody zigging towards social media these days, does that leave a giant hole (translation: opportunity) for traditional direct marketing to be used to engage customers and prospects? It’s been a spirited discussion so far. And I firmly believe that traditional direct marketing (integrated with the web) presents such an opportunity in a zigzag market.

Customer service now!!! The convergence of customer service and social media (and a moral)

There’s just too much prime opportunity online — e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc. — for brands to get dinged when they screw up. In the few weeks I’ve been back from vacation, I’ve been thinking about this as I go about my day-to-day dealings with companies.

Twice in the last few weeks I’ve gotten dinged: once by a salesman and once by a so-called customer service rep (CSR). But helping to restore my faith in our industry, I also recently had a fantastic customer service experience as well.

Bernhart Survey Reveals New Data On Direct Marketing Unemployment

Here is a grim look at the realities of employment in the direct marketing industry – From a survey done by Bernhart Associates. In a nutshell, what this survey doesn’t state is simple…. If you are employed in this economy, do everything you can to stay employed. Work harder, longer, smarter, get “win’s” on the board and in general make your self indispensable!

Just how powerful is social media? Some amazing stats!

Just how powerful is social media? I can’t wait to hear your comments on these stats and facts about social media.