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.

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.

Guest Blogger, Kevin Hillstrom: Build and Reap the Benefits of Social Media Databases

t’s really hard these days to find a marketing discussion that doesn’t include the phrase “social media.” But it’s also really hard to find a case study of someone who created a social media database and then measured return on investment based on the data in that database. A social media database…

You lost me there part 3 (losing customers in the call center)

If you believe — and many of the purest of pure-play Internet marketers do — that you don’t need a call center, think again. I’ve seen this debate lost over and over again. People still want, and sometimes need, a human voice to help with their orders, especially if you offer products that are complicated and/or higher in cost.

It’s not that difficult to add a call center these days…

Grand opening of new Linkedin Group – Direct Marketing Questions & Answers

Linkedin members can join by clicking here: http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/2080726/.

This is the place to get all of your direct marketing questions answered.

And if you are a direct marketing expert, this is the place to help gain notoriety.

Florida Direct Marketing Association & Jim Gilbert: The Second Half… Meet or beat your 2009 estimates & look like a superstar!

Jim Gilbert and the FDMA e are please to announce another great learning opportunity for you on June 18th.

The Second Half: Meet or beat your 2009 estimates and look like a superstar!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

A client vendor negotiations video that’s LOL funny (see if you’re guilty of any of these)

This is a good one. A hysterical video on client vendor relationships and payments. I don’t know about you but I may be guilty of some of these tactics. Thanks to the videographers for calling us out.

Four Questions to Continually Ask About Your Customers, Products and Brand

You don’t have to operate any stores to always “mind the store.” For us in the catalog/direct/multichannel world, that means finding time in our 24/7, 365-days-a-year world to step back and ask ourselves a few questions. It’s not an easy task to pull back from our everyday happenings, especially in this insane and fear driven economy, but it’s still mission critical to stop and ask:

1. Are we the company…