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Insight and Info

What's Hot as etailing Chills: Coupons - 11/4/2008
The economy is on the fritz, home prices keep falling, the stock market continues to sink, and retail sales are hurting at the worst time of the year, heading into the holidays.

Now add another to that list: declining traffic to online retail sites.

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Looking Behind These Latest Declines - 11/4/2008
Papers are suffering from a confluence of forces

By Diego Vasquez
Oct 28, 2008

When the Audit Bureau of Circulations numbers came out yesterday, showing a steeper-than-expected decline for many of the country’s large metropolitan newspapers, the papers themselves were ready with an explanation: They’re still pruning off that undesirable outlying circulation that advertisers don’t care about.

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Economic Shock Gives Rise To Coupon Cutting - 11/3/2008
By Emanuella Grinberg
CNN

(CNN) -- The rising price of consumer goods is driving shoppers from all walks of life to use coupons for food, beauty aids and pharmacy products at an increasing rate, according to some of the country's largest purveyors of manufacturers' coupons.

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4 Communication Styles to Effectively Reach Your Customers - 11/3/2008
By Valerie Kendrick, President of Kendrick Resources LLC

How can we use the four communication styles to connect to more potential clients? Why do we need to be aware of these styles when writing our direct mail literature?

If you haven�t asked yourselves these questions before writing your next direct mail piece, you may be missing a lot of opportunities. When we write to an unknown audience we need to make sure we capture the attention of each of the four communication styles

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Create attention-grabbing inserts - 10/10/2008

It's not enough just to use inserts – marketers need to make sure they grab the reader's attention. Four experts share how the right design, shape, size, offer and copy can help.





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Consumers to Spend Less, Use Coupons This Holiday Season - 10/10/2008

Nearly half of US online adults (45%) plan to spend less money on gifts this holiday season than last because of the state of the economy, and one in five plan to spend significantly less, according to a Harris Interactive survey commissioned by RetailMeNot.com.

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Yankelovich: Consumers Unwilling to Pay Extra for Green Products - 9/16/2008
Sep 16, 2008 1:40 AM

Despite growing interest in the environmental issues consumers are generally becoming less willing to pay higher prices for so-called green products, according to the market research firm Yankelovich Inc.



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Majority of Consumers Using More Coupons - 8/29/2008
Aug 27, 2008

-By Steve Miller


Bad news for trees, good news for business.

A new study finds that 72% of consumers are using more coupons than they did six months ago. Three-quarters of those respondents claimed the economy made them do it.

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5 Tips: Improving direct mail ROI/ - 8/25/2008
Though direct mail has always been a reliable channel, personalized copy and unique offers can heighten response rates and improve ROI. Five experts offer tips on how to optimize your mail campaign.


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Direct Mail Never Say Die - 7/31/2008
Author: Cara Wood
One of my favorite parts of overseeing the news desk at DMNews is how many controversial questions can arise for future Gloves Off contenders in our opinion section. I got an outpouring of response to the May 5 Gloves Off topic: “Is mail still effective for acquisition?” In my quest for a “no” counterpoint, I got a chorus of “yes!” responses from DMNews readers that was truly an inspiring testament to belief in this craft.

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Coupon interest rises in tight economy - 7/24/2008
By DAN SEWELL – Jul 2, 2008

CINCINNATI (AP) — With her household budget tightening, Michelle Fox treats couponing like getting a part-time job to help make ends meet.

In her case, it's a job that pays about $20 an hour.

"Every little bit helps. It's something I do for my family," said the Pueblo, Colo., resident, who helps offset rising costs for her five-person household by spending a few hours each week scouring the Sunday newspapers and Internet sites for opportunities to save quarters and dollars per item.

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Surprise! Newspaper Readership Shows Uptick - 7/24/2008
MRI Reports Readership Growth of 2.5%
New York – Newspaper readership in the top 100 markets grew to 80.6 million, up from 78.7 million, a gain of 2.5%, based on the most recent Spring 2008 Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI) survey as compared to the prior year. MRI tracks daily newspaper readership in the top 100 markets for Newspaper National Network LP and reports the NNN 100 Daily Code.

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Direct Mail Tries to Go Green. No, Really. - 7/24/2008
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
Published: July 23, 2008
MOST marketers readily concede it: getting rid of direct mail — or junk mail, as environmentalists and most recipients call it — would save a lot of trees. But they are not about to render bulk mailings obsolete.

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Social strategy is in this fall - 7/21/2008
July 18, 2008
For their back-to-school efforts, a number of multichannel merchants are marrying micro­sites with a significant push into social networking.

Some marketers see tie-ins with social networking sites, including MySpace and Facebook, as the biggest opportunity to reach teen­agers. But it is uncertain whether these efforts will be enough to ignite teen retail spending, which industry experts predict will be down for the rest of the year.

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Hispanic Ad Spend Up 3% in '07 - 7/11/2008
July 11, 2008

-By Della de Lafuente


NEW YORK Ad spending in Spanish-language media reached $5.78 billion in 2007, up 3 percent from $5.63 billion in 2006, with cable TV showing a 76 percent jump, buoyed by the addition of Fox Sports en Espanol and Telemundo's mun2 as measured media, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

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Imagery carries all the weight in direct mail postcard - 7/11/2008
Evan Bloom, co-owner, Sir Speedy of WestburyJune 30, 2008

This direct mail postcard targets former members of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) and urges them to rejoin the group. It has all the necessary elements of a successful design. The photo of an “all-American” golden retriever lying with his head cocked in a tilted position is appealing and dramatic.

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Print is still effective in the Web age - 6/19/2008
Gina Testa, VP, channel and customer business development, Xerox May 26, 2008

As baby boomers slowly give way to the Internet generation, surely it's only a matter of time before print fades away with them. The new breed works and plays online. They read newspapers or magazines on the Web. They exchange text messages and e-mail, not postal letters, and the direct mail they get, they trash without opening.

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An insert for every occasion - 6/10/2008
Insert media can be a cost-effective way to promote across brands, David Ward reports.

For years, 1-800-Flowers.com was known primarily for its niche in the gift bouquet industry. But as the company grew, adding divi­sions that offer gifts from premium confections and wine to children's toys and home décor, it found it needed a way to educate customers on its entire assortment of brands and products. And increasingly, the company has relied on insert media to not only drive those brand awareness efforts, but also to provide outside marketers with pro­grams to reach this audience.

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USPS: Presort bundles must display addresses face up - 6/6/2008
Ellen Keohane June 6, 2008

The US Postal service published revised mailing standards today in the Federal Register requiring mailers to place presort bundles on pallets with the addresses facing up. The revised standards go into effect as of September 11, 2008.

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Surviving a Soft Market - 6/6/2008
May 21, 2008
Posted by Ted Hurlbut at 4:07 PM

There are some early signs that the retail downturn may be starting to ease. It's still very early, and there are some very strong headwinds, notably $4.00 a gallon gasoline, but in several retail segments and categories there's finally signs of life. Whether it's the Fed's aggressive interest rate cutting in January that has kicked in, or consumers beginning to spend in anticipation of their federal tax rebate checks arriving in the mail, or shoppers simply tired of sitting on their hands, it appears the worst may be behind us.

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Improving Customer Relationships: Beyond The Buzz - 5/29/2008
By Hank Brigman
Expert Author

Customers are always a hot topic. But lately the discussions on customer relationships, including retention, satisfaction, and loyalty, have intensified. What is the basis for these discussions, and more importantly, what are leading organizations actually doing to improve customer relationships?

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Survey: CRM important to retailers in recession - 5/23/2008
Lauren Bell, May 07, 2008

New survey data released by Retail Systems Research (RSR) and Manhattan Associates Inc. show that a majority of retailers have not made plans to cope with consumer spending inspired by the economic stimulus plan - a move that could affect CRM strategies and customer loyalty.

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161 Newspapers Sliced, Diced, and Rated - 5/9/2008
by Jack Loechner, Thursday, May 8, 2008 8:15 AM ET

161 Newspapers Sliced, Diced, and RatedScarborough Research, released its annual Scarborough Newspaper Audience Ratings Report, a comprehensive compendium of the weekly print, weekly website and Integrated Newspaper Audience (combined print and online) ratings for 161 newspapers in 81 Top-Tier markets. As the release points out, "the report is a valuable desktop reference tool on newspaper ratings for those involved in the planning, buying or selling of local media."

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Text Market - 5/2/2008
Marketers are taking advantage of the fact that Hispanics are ahead of the general market on mobile data use
April 7, 2008

-By Della de Lafuente

To a marketer, U.S. Hispanics aren't just attractive because they are, as a population, expanding. The segment is also ahead of the curve on mobile computing. According to a 2007 survey by M:Metrics, Seattle, U.S. Hispanics are much more likely to use their mobile phones to do things beyond normal voice calls. While 3.1 percent of the general population used their mobile devices to watch videos, 6.7 percent of Latinos did and 26.8 percent of Hispanics sent a photo or video with their phones vs. 15.3 percent of the general population.

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Bare Bones - 5/2/2008
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM , Larry Riggs and; Ray Schultz

Are we dreaming?

Postal reform works. The rate hike that takes effect May 12 is the lowest in memory: an average of 2.88%. And some mail classes are getting even less than that.

Welcome to the newly empowered U.S. Postal Service. Like any business, it raised rates in some areas and flattened them in others to reflect market conditions.

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