Strategies and Solutions for Profitable Direct Marketing
Search results for American Express
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January 5, 2010 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
After 50 years of advertising—writing, designing, placing and analyzing the stuff—the most important thing I've learned is this: I cannot judge good advertising; it judges me. Slate.com reader opinions, at right “IN THE NEWS,” don't matter. If the ad works—brings in orders, donations or inquiries at the budgeted return on investment—it's good. If not, it’s bad. Never forget the legendary Anacin commercial that was offensive to millions, ran for years, sold tons of product and cured a zillion headaches. If an ad is successful, our job is to analyze it, figure out the elements that make it work and then steal smart. I have absolute contempt for ads whose ROI cannot be measured. Quite simply, the perpetrators are wasting money and are traitors to their stockholders.
January 2010 From Target Marketing
What do Apple, Wegmans and AAA have in common? They're all primarily B-to-C companies, yes, but they all also leverage editorial-style information as a commercial touchpoint. Welcome to what's being called content marketing, a practice commonplace in the B-to-B space but that is beginning to gain legs as a B-to-C marketing strategy.
December 2009 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
I'd always admired golfing great Tiger Woods for three reasons: (1) his brilliance on the golf course, (2) his impeccable elegance, and (3) his tightly controlled and shadowy personal life about which I was delighted to know nothing beyond the fact that he lived in Florida and owned a megayacht. Initial reports out of Florida on Friday, Nov. 27, by the usually reliable Associated Press described Woods as being seriously injured in a car accident. As so often happens, the pathetic, aggressive media—more anxious to get it out than get it right—got it dead wrong. He had minor facial lacerations and was released from the hospital later that day. "Media is the plural of mediocre," said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jimmy Breslin. When I read that the Woods’ Escalade sped out of the driveway in the wee hours of the a.m., hit a fire hydrant and ended up hugging a tree with Woods unhurt, I assumed it was some kind of domestic spat and thought no more about it. This was none of my business. But quickly the story began to grow legs and snowball. The world watched transfixed as a reputation, a marriage and a billion-dollar enterprise imploded. Being a businessperson, my thoughts were (and are) continually with Woods’ sponsors—Nike, Gatorade, Accenture, Gillette and the others—who were paying $105 million a year for pure excellence and got themselves a serial adulterer. How should the Woods organization have dealt with them?
Zimmerman Agency's Caroline Zimmerman on the Evolution of the Voucher
November 11, 2009 From Tipline
She began life after college as a school teacher before getting a job in the circulation department of a small magazine in New York City. That was when Caroline Zimmermann began to learn about direct marketing, including how much she liked it, to the point that she next got a job at a boutique direct marketing agency, where she became fascinated by both the art and the science of direct marketing—including whether or not her promotions worked.
November 11, 2009 From Tipline
She began life after college as a school teacher before getting a job in the circulation department of a small magazine in New York City. That was when Caroline Zimmermann began to learn about direct marketing, including how much she liked it, to the point that she next got a job at a boutique direct marketing agency, where she became fascinated by both the art and the science of direct marketing—including whether or not her promotions worked.
November 2009 From Target Marketing
Readers over the years know that I am a nutcase when it comes to rules. Do not break them unless a very good reason exists. The full-page ad ran a number of times in The New York Times and presumably other publications in the early fall.
October 2009 From Target Marketing
Pegg Nadler loves the unknown. Where others see challenges, she sees opportunities. Where others fear change, she fears boredom. These are some of the qualities that have driven her 30-year direct marketing career, the bulk of which she's spent advancing database marketing operations at commercial and nonprofit organizations and giving back to the direct marketing community. And they're why she's Target Marketing magazine's Direct Marketer of the Year.
5 Instances Where SEM Works Better Than SEO
September 2, 2009 From Tipline
Indebted consumers searching Google for "financial freedom" and a chance to reduce their bills were 101 percent more likely to convert to 800-number callers of San Diego-based debt settlement firm Fidelity Debt Solutions after the company optimized its paid search landing page.
September 2, 2009 From Tipline
Indebted consumers searching Google for "financial freedom" and a chance to reduce their bills were 101 percent more likely to convert to 800-number callers of San Diego-based debt settlement firm Fidelity Debt Solutions after the company optimized its paid search landing page.
June 2009 From Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense
Are financial services companies planning to screw over their most affluent customers as a result of the recent credit card legislation? In October 2008, I wrote in these paragraphs: Take a gander at this paragraph from a Wall Street Journal story by Robin Sidel on Oct. 20, 2008: “AmEx recently slapped a $1,100-a-month spending limit on John and Monica Bell's platinum AmEx charge card. The reason: AmEx customers who pay with plastic at the same places where Mrs. Bell shops and have the same mortgage lender have poor repayment histories, according to a letter sent by AmEx.” The couple pays $450 a year for the card—which promises "no pre-set spending limit." The couple routinely spent $5,000 a month—that's $60,000 a year—and has never been late with a payment. If the data goons are allowed to start treating blue-ribbon American Express Platinum Cardmembers like chronic deadbeats, what will happen to the rest of us? AmEx CEO Ken Chenault was punished for his perfidy. In the first quarter of 2009, his customers reduced spending by 16% and his net was down 55%. On May 19, AmEx announced it would ax 4,000 employees (on top of the 7,000 canned last October) and scramble to cut $800 million in expenses. A personal note to Ken Chenault, Visa, MasterCard, et al: When you allow bean counters and data analysts to make marketing decisions, you'll be punished. Now is the time to study the masters of customer relationship magic. And a good place to start is with Annemarie Victory.
May 2009 From Target Marketing
You can call it barbecue, barbeque, BBQ or just plain ’cue. Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue, of course, calls it business. In particular, it’s a family business that started in 1957 when the Fiorella clan opened the first of its barbecue restaurants in Kansas City, Mo., called Smoke Stack Barbecue. In 1974, the eldest Fiorella son, Jack, added another branch to the family trade by opening his own operation, which he later distinguished by renaming it Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue, introducing hickory wood to the grilling process and adding seafood to the more traditional pork, poultry and beef offerings.
First Up: Credit-Crunched Consumers
January 22, 2009 From
You know the economy is in a sorry state when the entire American auto industry needs a bailout while consumers are being warned about what gift cards to buy for the holidays . . . in case that store, such as Circuit City or Sears, is no longer there when shopping time comes around. Wow. The turmoil that began in the banking, mortgage and credit sectors, before spreading to the stock market and now automotive industry (well, trouble has been brewing there for quite some time), is taking a serious toll on direct marketing across channels.
January 22, 2009 From
You know the economy is in a sorry state when the entire American auto industry needs a bailout while consumers are being warned about what gift cards to buy for the holidays . . . in case that store, such as Circuit City or Sears, is no longer there when shopping time comes around. Wow. The turmoil that began in the banking, mortgage and credit sectors, before spreading to the stock market and now automotive industry (well, trouble has been brewing there for quite some time), is taking a serious toll on direct marketing across channels.
