Direct Mail Goes On a Diet?

It’ll be interesting to see next year’s version of Ben McConnell’s weigh-in : RRW’s Direct Marketing Blog reports that the Direct Marketing Association has eliminated the $1 fee it had been charging consumers to be part of its opt-out service, the DMA Mail Preference Service.  ____________________________________________________________________________________ I’ve written a white paper called The Seven Deadly […]

Direct Mail By The Pound

Ben McConnell of Church of the Customer has made a yearly tradition of keeping all of the direct mail he receives during the holiday season — and putting it on a scale.  This year: 21.5 pounds. Up over two pounds from last year, and a more-than-50 percent increase from 2005. His post gives some examples […]

Response is Not the Same as Results

If you work with clients on their advertising, you’ll eventually encounter the business person who confuses response with results. Response is when the guys at the country club tell you how funny your commercials are. Results is when your commercials cause a whole bunch of good prospects to become good customers. Last month, I probably […]

Marketing to Boomers as They Age

Very interesting article in the New York Times on how marketers are dealing with the aging of the Baby Boomer generation. The generation still has huge purchasing power, but the messages they respond to are different from those that succeeded with the previous generation of seniors. According to the Times, this is in part because […]

A Missed Opportunity

Over the holiday break, this ad ran in the Oregonian at least twice. My guess is that it ran all over the country, and the people who designed it didn’t feel like customizing the ad for specific markets.   Which means they blew it.    Brooks Brothers wants their prospects to respond in one of […]