Pitching the Crescent City
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Richard H. Levey
A multichannel effort by Smithsonian magazine and the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism was set to lure thousands of travelers to ...

Listline
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM
NEW LISTS Meritline Technology Buyers Media supply company Meritline has a list of 317,786 customers from the last 12 months. A typical sale was $72 for ...

Model Behavior
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By David Shepard
Want to drive higher responses and find a wealth of viable prospects in your database? You'll have to brave a bit of math. That is, you must segment your file and apply predictive models to it. And that's a complex task. Above all, you have to know what models can and can't do. ...

Pro-Choice
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, RAY SCHULTZ
The theme of John Greco's opening address at DMA07 last month was choice for consumers. Good topic. But it did give rise to a heretical thought: Maybe ...

Who Needs Needs?
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
I'm looking at a mailing from a company that sells vitamins and supplements. The key copy: Scientifically formulated for all your nutrition needs. Ugh. ...

Sox in Mouth
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Beth Negus Viveiros
Baseball's 2007 World Series champions likely will have been crowned by the time you read this. Will the Boston Red Sox be the kings of the sandlot, or ...

Get to Know HVDMA
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Beth Negus Viveiros
WHAT Hudson Valley Direct Marketing Association MEMBERSHIP 51 corporate members (including agencies, lettershops and mailing list vendors)and 29 individual ...

Swim, Don't Sink
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Beth Negus Viveiros
If you want to be a big fish in a small pond, you need to make a splash. In her new book “Riches in Niches — How to Make It Big in a Small Market” (Career Press), Susan Friedmann details how to become what she calls a “nichepreneur,” someone who's positioned him or herself as an expert in a specialized area. ...

Funky, Flirty, Loud and Lemony
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS
Today everyone has multiple storefronts. There's your catalog cover, your Web site home page, and, if you're a brick-and-mortar retailer, your physical, ...

Do You Do It?
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Beth Negus Viveiros
A Bill Me Later/Ipsos Insight survey found that more than 12 million Americans admitted to shopping online while on work-related conference calls. ...

Create a Community
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Tom Rapsas
These days there's a social networking Web site for just about every interest group from green living and activism (Care2) to dating and even flirting ...

Talk It Up
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Tom Rapsas
Any direct marketer worth his or her M.B.A. knows the importance of identifying a company's best customers — and keeping them happy. Since it can cost five to 10 times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to retain a current one, it's logical that DMers have to do everything in their power to recognize, reward and build long-term relationships with their top-tier clients. ...

An Underserved Market
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Richard H. Levey
Around 40% of those classified as “emerging Hispanics” (those over age 21 with annual household incomes below $40,000) sign up for them, compared with 60% of the general population, according to a new study from loyalty marketing firm Colloquy. ...

HAVE FAITH
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Beth Negus Viveiros
Everybody wants to believe in something, and Church Initiative found the light online. The marketer of materials for crisis support groups is using the Web to promote its ministry and help its customers help each other. ...

Can a Mailer Find True Happiness?
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Pamela Gaul
Direct mailers have been searching for even a shred of contentment since the most recent postal increase. It may be too much to think that the postal rate cloud has a silver lining. But, like a child's security blanket, it could at least be flannel. In other words, there's hope. ...

E-mail Delivers
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Ken Magill
Speak to e-mail marketers for any length of time about their craft, and sooner or later the topic of deliverability will come up. This year's e-mail roundtable was no exception as four top e-mailers outlined what they see as having the biggest impact on the industry in the last year and going into 2008. ...

How Not to Deal With ISPs
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, KEN MAGILL
Online political group Truthout.org cried foul recently after Hotmail and AOL blocked its e-mail. At the same time, Yahoo! apparently has been shunting ...

How to Keep Your Edge
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, Lisa Wehr
Here are six keys to staying competitive in search: Check your search positions often and use paid search to improve search performance. Optimize, optimize, ...

The Online Gate Is Open
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Lisa Wehr
Let's say you're a midsize company in an industry dominated by giants and you want to play with the big boys. They're big for a reason established brands, ...

Telereps, Save Your Breath
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Jeff Schmitt
In any sales or service situation it's critical to listen, diagnose and encourage prospects to elaborate before persuading. One way to do this in telesales is to ask open-ended, consultative questions. ...

Delta Ad Is Witty But Pointless
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, THOMAS L. COLLINS
One of the most common errors I encounter in ads that seem to need makeovers is a reluctance to accept that the largest word in the ad is the headline ...

Relevancy vs. Creativity
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, THOMAS L. COLLINS
Is relevancy really more important than creativity? It's hard to prove. But now there's TiVo StopWatch, a new way of measuring minute-by-minute television ...

Political Suppression
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, RICHARD H. LEVEY
Shaun Dakin wants to give politicians a taste of their own medicine. Dakin, a database marketer, was once a volunteer political telemarketer. In 2006 ...

Letters to the Editor
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM
I had an experience similar to the one Beth Negus Viveiros described in her column (Pushing the Envelope, September). ...