Blog

Addressable media updates

NextMark's Blog

Recommendations, updates, and thoughts from the NextMark executive team.

Twitter gives you “ambient social awareness” and “super powers”

April 24th, 2009

Jack Dorsey explains Twitter

Check out this interview on Vater.tv with Twitter founder/CEO Jack Dorsey where he explains Twitter to Bambi Francisco.

He recalls the genesis from the "ambient social awareness" he gained by monitoring dispatch services in New York City. He says, "I just found this fascinating because you get this beautiful picture of what's going on in the city."

He calls Twitter a "personal news wire" and a "communications utility." But he cautions that it's not a social network… although one can be built on top of Twitter.

He also explains how Twitter gives you "super powers" though the example of making a mobile phone purchasing decision he made. Watch out Superman, here comes Twitter 😉

Seriously, it's a great interview and gave me much better insight into Twitter. Check it out.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Web/Tech | Comments Off on Twitter gives you “ambient social awareness” and “super powers”

Recycling Hardware the NextMark Way

April 22nd, 2009

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) today encouraged marketers to join its "Recycle Please" campaign and take its "Green 15" pledge in honor of Earth Day 2009. As a DMA Member, NextMark responded with a slightly different effort. Our engineering and operations teams took advantage of an opportunity to clean house on a warm Spring day, and filled the bed of a Toyota Tundra with yesterday's infrastructure.

Systems Plus Computers, Inc., a local supplier, was the beneficiary of multiple machines and monitors, large and small, of various types. Their computer hardware recycling program made it easy for us to contribute to a better environment. It is encouraging to know that some components may be put to future use, and that the remaining frames will not end up as landfill supporting the next new housing development in South Jersey. It is important for all of us to remember that the computers we use pose hazards when we discard them, so please reach out to your local computer hardware suppliers to see what recycling programs they offer.

NextMark has a right way to dispose of your unwanted hardware, but this clearly is not it.

Although the NextMark organization is virtually paperless, we are happy to 'go green' this April 22, 2009 Earth Day and to prevent unecessary waste. Hope you enjoyed the video. Visit the findlists channel on YouTube to see our videos about mailing lists.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Culture and Society | Comments Off on Recycling Hardware the NextMark Way

Find NextMark on Facebook

April 22nd, 2009

FindusonFacebook

 

Did you know that as of this month (April 2009) there are over 200 million active users on Facebook? That's double the number of users the company had just eight months ago. That's impressive considering that Mark Zuckerberg and three of his buddies launched the application from their Harvard dorm room in February 2004. Within a year there were a million users and it took off even more rapidly from there.

After reading Facebook Marketing: Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business, I decided to create a page for NextMark.Reach Your Market Logo Although this network is more appropriate for consumer marketing than business-to-business, it is still a good place to be. Most of our blog traffic comes from LinkedIn and other networks, but the Facebook page is a great way of keeping others informed about what is going on here at NextMark. We have some nice pictures of our data center posted on our company page, an active poll about Barack Obama's use of Twitter, live updates from our blog, cutting edge videos from our YouTube channel, and more. Direct marketers are facing some real challenges right now, but many of those who have embraced social network services appear to be more optimistic. Only time will tell how well these outlets deliver in terms of paid advertising ROI but the effort to create a page on Facebook is minimal and time well spent for your business.

About 4 million users become fans of Facebook pages each day. We'd love to have you as a NextMark fan. You are also invited to join the NextMark groups on Facebook or Linkedin and keep up on what's happening with next generation marketing. We hope to see you there!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Culture and Society | Comments Off on Find NextMark on Facebook

The mailing list industry ain’t dead yet… or is it?

April 21st, 2009

Is the mailing list industry headed for death? Two industry veterans take opposing viewpoints through their articles recently published in Direct Magazine. One says "we'll actually be more profitable in 2009" while the other says "the entire direct mail industry is stinko."

David Kanter of Acculist USA takes the optimist's viewpoint in "The List Industry Ain't Dead Yet" including:

"For prospecting, e-mail is not a substitute for a well conceived direct mail program. E-mail open rates are declining. If truth be told, direct mail may actually cost less than e-mail, and generate a superior return on investment (ROI). E-mail is great for maintaining relationships with customers. If you rely on e-mail for prospecting, you will probably be out of business, whether in a good or bad economy."

David's article was in response to a previous article "Direct Marketing Industry is in Major Jeopardy" by Robert Dunhill of Dunhill International List Co., where he takes the pessimist's viewpoint:

"To start, the money that's spent on direct mail in 2009 will fall about 10% under 2008 levels. That's a real wow, isn't it? And, it's not restricted to the financial giants. But they sure are the biggest losers. The mortgage lenders and finance companies were off almost 40%. The credit card companies dropped their volume by 22%. The tech guys, automotive, hospitality and travel, plus the investment companies combined for an additional 56% volume decrease."

The list industry will certainly not stay the same as it was 10 years ago. So which is it? Is the list industry headed for death or a transformation? 

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Industry Observations | Comments Off on The mailing list industry ain’t dead yet… or is it?

Unbelievable! 47 years old, unemployed, never been kissed — instant star!

April 17th, 2009

I’ve been contemplating the question: Is Twitter just for Twits? The jury’s still out on whether it’s useful in business, but now I can see how it adds value to society.


Case in point: “Susan Boyle” was the #1 trending topic last night on Twitter. Never heard of Susan Boyle, so I clicked through to find out what all the chatter was about. Then I discovered a true gem on YouTube “Susan Boyle – Singer – Britains Got Talent 2009”.


Susan-boyle


Follow the link to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY


If Susan Boyle does not stir your emotions, you are not human.


Back to the subject… This video has only been on the air for less than 1 week (Since April 11th). It already has 19 million views. That’s a far faster rise than the YouTube phenom Chocolate Rainmaker. The votes and comments roll in every second.


I don’t believe this attention and stratospheric rise would have been possible without Twitter. Obviously, Britain’s Got Talent and YouTube, too.


As they say, Twitter tells you what is going on right now. The “right now” is the key part of their value. Otherwise, Twitter is a waste of time 😉

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Culture and Society | Comments Off on Unbelievable! 47 years old, unemployed, never been kissed — instant star!

Is Barack Obama Following NextMark on Twitter?

April 16th, 2009

Yes, it's true. Our Commander and Chief, Barack Obama was following NextMark on Twitter. I'm not surprised since the President embraced next generation marketing during his campaign and continues to do so in office. Obama Following NextMark Before getting too excited about this, I should note that NextMark is also following him back. NextMark is also just one of over 700,000 being followed by the President.

Is it really him? It might be since there hasn't been much activity since the inaugaration and we all know how busy he has been with the economy since he stepped into office. His last post was on January 19th encouraging followers to volunteer locally in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This post was superceded by a tweet to follow the inaugaral events, which was the last post since the election. Barack Obama is a hands-on President who does not hesitate to roll up his sleeves and go to work. I think it's really him – do you?

 

Tags:
Posted in Culture and Society | Comments Off on Is Barack Obama Following NextMark on Twitter?

200 foot tall declaration of love

April 16th, 2009

This video, “The Break Up,” by Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions does a great job of illustrating the state of customer “relationship” marketing at many firms:





Thanks to Indiemark Chronicles and Jim Gilbert for sharing this.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Industry Observations | Comments Off on 200 foot tall declaration of love

15 URL shorteners to choose from – which is right for you?

April 13th, 2009

The rise in Twitter's popularity has spurred the rise in popularity of another technology, URL shorteners. Twitter's 140-character limit on messages does not leave much room for a long URL. Thus the need for a URL shortener.

For example, in a recent tweet by NextMark (twitter @nextmark) on the 1q09 results of the data card quality report, the URL http://nextmark.typepad.com/blog/2009/04/list-brokers-do-care-about-data-cards.html (84 characters – more than half the allowed message length) was shortened to http://bit.ly/9WTH (only 18 characters!):

Url-shortener

But not all URL shorteners are created equal. In fact, some URL shorteners, like Diggbar, are considered evil. There are a surprising number of issues to consider when choosing an URL shortening service. You could certainly roll your own and have full control. But there are plent of good commercially available solutions available for free. Danny Sullivan does a great job of summarizing your options in his article "URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use?"

Update: One that was not on Sullivan's list: ow.ly is also evil. This one followed the lead of Diggbar by pointing to the ow.ly website with the destination site in their wrapper.

This brings up the good point that URL shortener services can change their software at any minute. Today they do a 301 redirect (good) and tomorrow they point to their website with your site in their wrapper (really evil), which steals your "link juice", screws up your analytics, and generally undermines your business. Be very careful of these services.

My advice to you: roll your own URL shortener if you have the skillz in house. It's not that hard. Or do your homework and pick a service that is good now and won't switch schemes down the road (get that in writing).

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Technology | Comments Off on 15 URL shorteners to choose from – which is right for you?

Rate the DMA on LinkedIn

April 10th, 2009

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) was founded in 1917, and currently represents more than 3,400 companies in the United States and 48 other nations. NextMark and many of our clients are also DMA members. The organization "advocates for responsible marketing and promotes relevance as the key to reaching consumers with desirable offers," as noted on their web site.DMA LinkedIn Poll With 40 percent of a campaign's success dependent on choosing the right lists, it is clear that targeted list research is an important part of the direct marketing process. So how are they doing with the list side of the business?

I decided to conduct a quick poll on LinkedIn to find out what marketing services providers are thinking on the subject.

When I walk the aisles at the DMDays conference each year, I see dozens of list companies lined up with innovative solutions for helping mailers with new customer acquisition; and I know they paid good money to be there. Let's see what they think and how it might be paying off.

Not a member of the NextMark group on LinkedIn? Click here to join.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Service Improvements | Comments Off on Rate the DMA on LinkedIn

I Digg NextMark

April 9th, 2009

There may be 7.5 million Twitter users following each other around, but I still prefer to Digg NextMark. Twitter outpaced Digg earlier this year, so I guess I'd better start paying more attention to our followers, although there are not that many of them — yet! In the meantime, I must say that the Digg widget below is a really nice feature. You can customize it based on your preferred news content and it will update in real time.



Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Happy Customers | Comments Off on I Digg NextMark
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »