Q&As

Cross-selling has become an important focus for many companies since it’s been shown to generate incremental profit and improve long-term customer retention. Marketers also recognize the CRM perspective that, after offering the best products, successful cross-selling depends largely on an offer’s relevance. But too often database marketers struggle to reach this difficult goal.

Here are some suggestions that might make things easier.

Who do you trust?

That is, whose word do you take on the state of the list business?

List managers and brokers say that rental volume and commissions are up.

But mailers don’t necessarily agree. We contacted both groups for our 2007 list use survey and got slightly different results from each.

NEW LISTS J.H. Breakell and Co. The 8,854 named here bought jewelry and fashion accessories during the last 12 months. A typical customer is a 48-year-old

Is investment in online marketing growing the way it once did? Probably not, judging from Direct’s 2007 online marketing survey.

Fewer DMers are planning large spending increases this time around, and more seem to be embracing a wait-and-see attitude.

On the wall of his office in Washington, Steve Berry keeps a pair of maps depicting a growing trend. The map, labeled shows only four red states; the

Bill Bernbach, Rosser Reeves and David Ogilvy surely were the three greatest brand-advertising thinkers. And as most of my readers know by now, I consider David Ogilvy the greatest of them all.

A lot of business buying has switched from response-based to search-based. That is, when businesspeople consider a purchase, their first stop is the Internet

Not since Ponzi have so many “rewards” programs blossomed in our midst.

The catalyst, of course, is the World Wide Web, whose fertilizer-enhanced tentacles ensnare the unwary and enrage the wary.

This issue I begin a semi-regular feature giving

Should job candidates bearing tattoos hide their colors? Yes, because such illustrations risk biasing potential hirers, according to research from search media firm Vault Inc.

Direct marketers know differently. To a DMer, a tattoo is the outer-envelope window that hints at the freemium of a potential employee’s soul.