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ZIP+4 + 2 = ZIP+6
By Ray Schultz
(Direct) How do you get an entire newspaper chain to improve its targeting? It's not easy when you own 90 papers, ranging from small weeklies to big-town dailies. ...
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The First Five Commandments of Database Content Management
By Jim Wheaton
(Multichannel Merchant) Myriad methods exist to turn data into actionable insight. Examples include statistics-based predictive models, homogeneous groupings (also known as clusters), cohort analyses such as lifetime value, ...
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Adding a Persona Touch
By Tim Parry
(Multichannel Merchant) Ask anyone at women's apparel cataloger/retailer Appleseed's to describe Kate, and they will tell you that Kate is a baby boomer, a mother — maybe even a grandmother — who is active in her community ...
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Evaluating Web-Generated Names
By Todd Miller
(Multichannel Merchant) Traditional catalog-oriented direct marketers have always been suspicious of customers acquired via the Internet. "They are not loyal," some reasoned. ...
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Making Measurement Matter
By Jatinder Singh
(Direct) The rest of the world finally appears to have caught up with direct marketers' focus on accountability....
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Something for Something Drives Data Collection
By Jeff Zabin
In Latin, quid pro quo means “something for something.” As English speakers, we use the term to refer to a more-or-less equal exchange of goods or services. But that definition has severe limitations in the world of interactive promotions...
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Recording Customers in Motion
By Amy Guggenheim Shenkan, Sean Collins, and Jeff Schumacher
(Multichannel Merchant) During the next five years, retail store sales are projected to grow by 2.4%. In contrast, e-commerce sales are expected to climb by 13%-14%. ...
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Demand Insight and the Data Value Chain
By Gavin Finn
An engineer has been defined as “someone who measures with a micrometer, marks with chalk, and cuts with an ax.” The message of this quip is simple: If the tool to take action is blunt, fine measurement means little. ...
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Test? Yes. Overtest? No.
By Ray Schultz
Want to make sure your e-zine is going to be read?
Heed the ancient wisdom of direct mailers, and test. But do it in a way that is appropriate for the medium, says Reid Carr, president of Red Door Interactive Inc.
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How to Send an E-mail Newsletter Your Customers Will Love
by Elaine O'Gorman
The Internet is overflowing with poorly executed email marketing newsletters. Here's advice on how to create a newsy marketing communication that people continue to open and actually read. We've all gotten them. Some of us, to our vexation and bewilderment, have produced them: email marketing newsletters that fail to keep recipients opening and clicking over time.
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E-Zine Program Helps PTC’s resellers Connect
By Beth Negus Viveiros
“You never call, you never write.” Who wants to have their customers say that? Certainly not software marketer PTC, which is seeing an uptick in revenue and customer interaction thanks to an e-newsletter program for its resellers created by IMN.
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Social Networks: or, How to Win on Friendster and Influence People
By Brian Quinton
Nothing in the online advertising space has attracted more attention recently than the phenomenon of social networking. And judging by the audience numbers for these online communities, nothing probably could. (Well, if Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes began renting out ad space on baby Suri's Pampers, perhaps.) ...
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Ads and the Blogosphere
By Brian Quinton
The blogosphere is getting to be quite a crowded spot. At press time, Nielsen BuzzMetrics BlogPulse had identified about 32.9 million blogs on the global Internet and counted about 850,000 new posts in the course of a single day. But it’s not just bloggers who’ve taken up RSS, the Really Simple Syndication platform that lets users subscribe to have content delivered to their browsers automatically as it’s posted. ...
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How to Write (and Not Write) E-Zine Teaser Copy
By Ray Schultz
Let’s see how good you are. What is the most important element in an e-mail newsletter (other than the content)? Guess again if you said the subject line. Equally crucial is the teaser copy in the newsletter itself.
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Tricks of the E-mail Trade
By Ray Schultz
Wondering how to serve your newsletter reader? Follow the example of New York magazine. It views readers not as one horizontal group, but as vertical segments. ...
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B-to-B Recipients Want E-mail on Mondays, Tuesdays: eROI
By Ken Magill
Here’s news for B-to-B e-mail newsletter publishers wondering when to broadcast. The overwhelming majority of recipients of business-to-business e-mail prefer to get it on Mondays and Tuesdays, according to a study released this week by e-mail service provider eROI....
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B-to-B Direct Marketers High on Content
By Richard H. Levey and Ray Schultz
When it comes to putting serious content into e-mail, business-to-business marketers lead the way. Two thirds of them use e-mail for education, compared with less than half for consumer marketers, according to a summer snapshot survey from Direct magazine.
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Just How Much Should You Give Them in Your E-Zine?
By Peter Krass
The right number of articles for a newsletter is however many it takes to do the job. And the job is reaching your target audience, getting your message across, and persuading your readers to take whatever action it is that you want them to take. ...
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Gen Y Phones It In
By Richard H. Levey
Today's mobile phones are tomorrow's e-commerce mediums, according to Forrester. In a study of consumers and technology, the firm found that Generation Y uses its phones for a lot more then making calls – which means that once it has some serious money to spend, it'll be comfortable with this channel. Will you?...
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Should Mel Gibson Be Forgiven? Jewish Group Asks in Viral Campaign
By Richard H. Levey
Call it a case of cosmic coincidence: A Jewish organization is about to launch a viral campaign that touts the value of forgiveness. This occurs just after actor Mel Gibson made an initial pass at apologizing to the Jewish community for anti-Semitic comments he uttered while being arrested for speeding and drunk driving....
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Party Firm Joins the IMN Party
By Ray Schultz
The party goes on.
Do-Re-Me & You! is the latest direct sales firm to sign up for IMN’s Party Pulse e-zine service. Its 1,000 consultants, who sell children’s storybooks and other learning products in home sales parties, can now communicate with customers through e-mail newsletters.
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Tips for Dealing with The Tough E-Zine Challenges
By Ray Schultz
As far as we know, there are no degree programs for how to create e-mail newsletters. But it’s an art that should be studied.
In their eagerness to get their sales message across, many firms ignore basic design and technical rules.
Here are some e-mail tips from Geoff Smith, managing director of online product develop for Prism Business Media, the publisher of this e-zine.
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How to Get Valid Phone Numbers From B-to-B Prospects
By Anne Holland
Last week, MarketingSherpa research partner KnowledgeStorm distributed a press release about its new research, which shows that B-to-B tech buyers were twice as likely to give a valid e-mail address than a valid phone-number when registering for content....
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HTML, Subject Lines Affect E-Mail Open Rates: Study
By Richard H. Levey
If electronic newsletter and e-mail efforts have seemed a bit off recently, there may be solace in numbers: Both open rates and click-through percentages fell in first-half 2006 from the second half of 2005, and from first-half 2005’s levels, according to a new study....
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