January 2009 Current Issue

Cover Story : Taking it Personal
When Charter Bank launched a retention program for its residential mortgage customers nearly three years ago, little did it know how significant this initiative would be in positioning the firm to weather one of the worst housing markets since the...

Multichannel : PURLs of Wisdom
For companies that had their heads in the clouds when it came time to upgrade their computers, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and JDA Software Group thought it was time for some skywriting. The technology firms sent out personalized direct mail pieces that...

Database : Put Yourself in the Driver's Seat

I arrived for a visit with my friend Bosley the other day. He appeared more than a bit stressed. “It can’t be done!” he wailed. “I just don’t see any way to bring down our acquisition costs. If I have...

E-Commerce Link : Test for Success

It’s a new year, and this is the perfect time to make plans to improve results from your e-mail programs by conducting some meaningful tests. It always surprises me that as marketers we give lip service to the importance of...

Message & Media : Mind Your Message
As a direct marketer, what’s on your mind as the new year begins? Response rates? Rising costs? Customer reaction to changes ahead?...

Direct Selling : Define Your Customers
Most multichannel marketers think of customers in straight-forward terms: females, 45 to 60 years old, $75,000-plus household incomes, for example. These broad-sweeping demographic descriptors have a place in customer definitions but aren’t the end-all, be-all in defining who does business...

Nuts & Bolts - Production : Best Western Bests Transpromo
Bills, bills, bills. Even marketers can think of them as so mundane as to be ignored as possible advertising vehicles. But that’s a mistake, says Lee Gallagher, manager of global solutions for InfoPrint Solutions Co. of Boulder, Colo. There are...

Nuts & Bolts - Tech Talk : RFM in One-Two-Three
Bridgeville, Pa.-based data mining and automated analytics company ASA Corp. has released a product that integrates real and hypothetical data for better campaign preparation. SuperRFM is meant to tie predictive analytics to core business data: including recency of the last...

Nuts & Bolts - Case Study : Creating a Membership Quorum
Problem: Increase Quorum Federal Credit Union’s membership by 6 percent in one month. Solution: Create a referral program that provides monetary incentives for both lead providers and referees, who legally only can be family members or partner company employees....

Market Focus - Skiers : Hitting the Slopes
If you’re looking for an affluent market that spends money on travel, hobbies and leisure activities, you can’t go wrong with skiers. According to the National Ski Areas Association’s (NSAA) 2007/2008 National Demographic Study, 29 percent of skiers have incomes...

Famous Last Words : Surrounding Your Market
Many years ago, in the 1970s—when I was starting out as a freelancer after 15 years of corporate misery—I was lucky enough to have a rather fanciful article on direct mail accepted by FOLIO: The Magazine for Magazine Management. FOLIO...

Editor's Notes : Marketers With Game
As of press time, free shipping was expected to be the most popular promotion run by marketers during the 2008 holiday shopping season. But it certainly wasn’t the only strategy that businesses brainstormed to compete for cash-strapped customers....