USPS “No 2010 Rate Increase”: The Loophole and a Call to Action

Just when I thought it was safe to believe in the U.S. Postal Service, I find out this lovely tidbit of information: Despite Postmaster General John Potter’s grand statement (or was it a grandstanding statement) that there’d be no postal rate increase in 2010, there’s a giant loophole.

Dear Mr. Postmaster General, you’ve started a trend… but…

A week ago the USPS Postmaster General sent out a memo stating there would be no postal increase for direct mailers in 2010. We must make our voice heard and hold their feet to the fire to keep the direct and catalog marketing business moving. Therefore I wrote the letter below to the USPS. I urge you to send in your own letter, or use/modify my letter to suit your needs. The Postmaster General’s Contact information is below…

Dying to Get Your Offer (aka: dead men still get mail)

Another kind of “do not mail” database:

Don’t mailers know they’re wasting money? Direct mail costs enough these days. So much so that it doesn’t make sense to mail someone who can be easily suppressed from a mailing list.

Guest Article: 10 Tips for Looking HOT on Internet Marketing Video by Jessica Kizorek

Preparing to be in front of a camera soon? Follow these ten tips or risk looking like a loser on video. Guest Article: 10 Tips for Looking HOT on Internet Marketing Video by Jessica Kizorek

Kudos, an open letter (and a warning) to the USPS Postmaster General (spread this around)

Over the years I’ve been super vocal about my dislike for the U.S. Postal Service and its less-than-forward-thinking bureaucracy. When it slammed direct marketers with a 20 percent postal increase back in 2007, I went (pun intended) postal on it in my Catalog Success Magazine Column… I have to applaud the USPS for its announcement last week that there would not be a postal rate increase in 2010…But along with my kudos to our Postmaster and the USPS, I also want to put them on notice…

David Ogilvy had it right!

It’s time to go back to the future with David Ogilvy. Direct vs General vs. Internet vs. Social Media. Direct wins hands down. Here’s why…

Easy, Cost Effective Internet Video Part 2 – Video search optimization and a bonus content tip

Online video can also drive search engine results. Since I’m by no means a search expert, I reached out to Khrysti Nazzaro, director of optimized services at the search engine marketing firm MoreVisibility, for some advice. “Videos can be powerful tools for ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs) if your site’s pages are well-optimized for them.

Consider creating a “

Guest Post: Social media – Peeling past the hyperbole to learn valuable lessons by Carol Worthington-Levy

On whose scale is that either measurable or successful? D’oh! It’s smoke and mirrors – our own industry’s media falling into the same tepid pool as the bigger media has, by expanding stories into big headlines that exaggerate, but don’t really state the truth. While I have respect for what our media is up against, I don’t respect their not culling through PR releases to find out what the real truth is before printing it.

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