Chief Marketer Staff, Author at Chief Marketer

Watch Out for the Little Guys

Sure, many of the big players in direct response have embraced database marketing’s best practices. They’re extending analytic capabilities across all mediums and integrating marketing channels into a single file.

But they’d better watch their backs: Small and mid-tier companies

Agencies

Web 2.0 Meets the Senior Set

Computer and application developers have long talked about the “grandma test”: If their hardware or programs were intuitive enough for older relatives to use, they knew they had something a broad swath of the everyday online public could find value in.

Agencies

David Takes on the Goliaths

Retailer Dave’s Soda and Pet City made its first move into the multichannel world last month with an e-commerce site to promote the national launch of Simply the Best dog food.

Agencies

Let’s Make a Deal

Grizzard Performance Group posed this question in a recent survey: You’re planning on purchasing a large item, like a TV. After much research, you decide

Agencies

Lounging Around

American Express may be doing a little more entertaining this year. The firm will decide by March whether to expand a pilot program to put upscale lounges

Agencies

Some Really Stupid PR Tricks

Why are direct marketing firms so often so bad at press relations? No one is saying every DMer must have a PR rep, but if a professional communicator is part of a company’s marketing, is it too much to ask that they be at least competent?

Agencies

And the Mail Just Keeps Coming

It would seem most marketers are aware that the World Trade Center towers are no longer standing. Not true, according to the U.S. Postal Service. The

Agencies

ID, Please

Collette Vacations had a powerful marketing tool at its fingertips: A database of customer satisfaction survey responses, which also held information

If You Believe That

Planning to use a live check as a promotional hook? Think again. Chase Bank and Trilegiant Corp. got into hot water with 17 states over the use of this

Agencies

Look Back in Hunger

Last month, The New York Times ran a list of 2006’s top ideas, one of which had interesting direct marketing ramifications: television commercials that hide special offers by making them viewable only through freeze-frame technology. The “top idea” here was marketers’ attempts to dissuade consumers from using digital video recorders, such as TiVo, to fast-forward through commercials.