Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Empty-Wallet Wednesday: A Tale of Two Shoppers

(update: even 5 year olds are getting into the act. Friday I was at Best Buy and overheard the following, “But Daddy, it’s Black Friday… Pleeeeeeeease get it for me before the price goes up!”)

Friends and readers: I hope you all had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. I also hope you had a great Black Friday and a killer Cyber Monday despite our current economic circumstances.

I seem to remember not too long ago when Black Friday was…

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…

We’re on a mission to create the best direct marketing education forum on Linkedin

3 weeks, 540 members strong. Join us: http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/2080726/ We have members from all area’s of direct marketing ready to share their expertise with you. We also have international members.
Want to know more about search, blogs, direct mail, telemarketing, lists, social media, and all direct marketing disciplines, then join us.
If you are an expert in direct marketing, please join us too.

You lost me there (part one, website issues that lose you business)

Part of that presentation dealt with improving Web marketing. Many e-commerce Web sites are good at taking orders, but not so good at capturing prospects.

Thus the goal of this series, which I’m calling “You Lost Me There,” is to help you get more of the people who visit your Web site to raise their hands and request to continue the dialogue with you. You want these people in your database, as they’ve expressed some level of interest in your products.

That said, here are three tips to optimize online sales:

Evolution, Revolution: Attention All Marketers – Change Is Gonna Come (and ROI Will Follow)

As we near the end of the first decade of the new century (time flies right?), the direct marketing business is caught in a war that’s being played out on many fronts.

Let me put this in perspective for you: If you study history, you’ll see that at the turn of every new century comes great change. However, great change is often preceded by great turmoil. Whether it was the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century or the buildup to World War I and the Great Depression in the early 20th century, change, as they say, is gonna come.

Why Catalogs Fail

Why do catalogs fail? The answer is deceptively simple, while the remedy is not.

Most catalogs fail because they walk away from the basics; they ignore the elementary economic analyses necessary to properly measure and control the business. Read on

Three Ways to Cut Customer Acquisition Costs

With response rates down and expenses up, now is a great time for you to look at alternative ways to acquire customers and even lower your customer acquisition costs… You’d be surprised at how many other companies there are out there with products that have an affinity to yours and that would be open to a marketing partnership.

Here are some examples of the types of programs you can set up

Update: the FL “do not mail” House vote scheduled for Tuesday is NOT happening

The Do Not Call bill in front of the FL House is off the schedule for now. Thanks. Please keep the pressure up on FL lawmakers. Furthermore, Do Not Mail proposals would not save trees. Nearly all paper used for advertising mail is generated from sustainably managed forests where trees are planted, harvested and re-planted solely for the use of paper and wood products. More info…

Learn more about the dangers of Do Not Mail legislation

For those naysayers who say direct mail should be legislated out of existence, read the FACTS here. (here is a hint, it’s about jobs, and revenue to the economy!

http://www.mailmovesamerica.org/index.php

The most basic direct and catalog marketing fundamentals (to learn and re-learn)

I recently had a conversation with another catalog consultant about a client proposal we’re jointly working on. The conversation worked its way to a discussion on the basic fundamentals of direct marketing. In essence, what’s the most basic fundamental of direct marketing that we need to present and our clients need to follow?

It came down to this: