To add the mailing lists search tool to your web site and provide your visitors with access to over 60,000 mailing lists, just copy and paste the following code into the HTML document where you want the search tool to appear:
5 tweets from the tower of ‘babble’
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Has Twitter become the tower of 'babble'? Here are five 'tweets' that might help you decide:
- redclaymedia: how to spam Facebook like a pro: an insider’s confession
- marlooz: how does a spoiled rich girl change a lightbulb? She says, "daddy, I want a new apartment."
- erinragan: apparently it's a bad idea to discuss your dog(s) on Twitter. Spammers come out of the woodwork!
- austin03112007: ouch! i just bit my freaking cheek!
- wfullerton: I just ate a 32 ounce steak. I thought u all should know that.
Maybe Ozzy can help clarify a few of these now that he's gone mobile with Samsung. Enjoy!
What can direct marketers learn from this? I'm not exactly sure, but I am certainly feeling much better about the integrity of direct marketing and mailing lists nowadays.
Which school of marketing teaches the best lessons?
Friday, October 9th, 2009In this 7-minute video, marketing legend David Ogilvy implores every marketer to build their career on a foundation of direct marketing disciplines. He chastises those who "worship at the altar of creativity."
Do Ogilvy's "old school" principles hold true in today's media landscape? Are Twitter, Facebook, mobile, etc. are changing everything? Does the "new school" make the lessons taught by direct marketing obsolete?
If you think Ogilvy's lessons are still valid, you can get a full dose of his powerful ideas in his book Ogilvy On Advertising.
A special thanks to Jim Gilbert for sharing this video in his blog!
If I Only Had a List to Start My Catalog Business!
Thursday, September 10th, 2009by guest author, Jim Gilbert
Last week, I had a former student ask me what list he should buy to grow his new business. I’ll tell you why that question is the wrong one.
First of all, if you’re new to the catalog/multichannel business model, you don’t buy lists; you rent them. Rentals are for one-time use only. In fact, the list industry works very hard to police each list it rents out by seeding names to find out if list renters are using it correctly.
So, if you mail the same list more than once, it’s likely you’ll get caught, and your catalog could wind up blackballed in the industry (which is very small). Your list broker could get in trouble, too!
Next, there’s no such thing as one list that can grow a catalog business. Heck, if there was, I would be out of a career, and everybody would be in the catalog business! But I digress.
If you’re looking to test list rentals as a way of acquiring new customers, here are a few tips for you.
1. It’s likely that any one particular list you mail won’t make a profit on the first mailing. Make sure you understand the concept of lifetime value, which is the net stream of revenue customers will generate over their lifetime. If you lose money on acquiring customers, you’d better make it up with subsequent orders.
2. A lifetime value analysis looks like a P&L for each customer. Essentially, all income and expenses over the years are calculated and ROI can be seen over time.
3. Merely mailing a test catalog one time can be a wonderful way to help your printers’ kid get new braces and give the U.S. Postal Service enough money to fund its next rate case.
4. If you’re going to invest in catalog marketing, develop a fully cooked plan that includes a mail plan by year, by drop and by list — with cash flow estimates, P&Ls and the aforementioned LTV estimates. A plan by drop and by list includes many lists, including your housefile and rented lists.
5. Expect to invest in acquiring new customers for a number of years. Assume that you need to fund your catalog for three years minimum until you have reached critical mass. I define critical mass as enough customers to generate enough sales per catalog to cover your prospecting efforts. Said another way, that’s your break-even point.
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Jim Gilbert is president of Gilbert Direct Marketing, a full-service catalog and direct marketing agency. You can reach him at jimdirect@aol.com or 561-302-1719.
Top 100 Social Media Cheat Sheet for Business
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009Social marketing is on the rise and it’s here to stay. Are you still trying to figure out how to leverage social media for your business? You can start by learning the language with definitions from the marketing glossary, and then use this cheat sheet as a reference for most commonly used tools.
A few months ago a cheat sheet was introduced as a tool to help marketers get organized with Web 2.0 and social media marketing. Many new services have emerged since then. Therefore, several of those respective web sites have been added to this page as a quick reference linking to 100 free social marketing resources and online directories.
Bookmark this page or add it to your favorite places for quick and easy access to several of the top services by category. This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, and some of these sites may not be the top choices internationally. However, it is a valuable resource for leveraging many of the top networks in the U.S., and can help you gain some international exposure as well.
Basic services must be free to qualify for inclusion on the top 100 list below. For your convenience, each title is linked directly to the respective site’s home page. I hope you will find this to be a helpful resource for your business. Feel free to connect with me (DeMartine) on LinkedIn if you would like to share other resources that are available online.
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Free Social Media Resources (Top 100)
Aggregation Tools (5): Bloglines, FriendFeed, Lifestream.fm, Lijit, YouBundle
Blogs (7): Blog.com, Blogger, Livejournal, Posterous, Tumblr, Typepad, WordPress
Blog Directories (10): Blogapedia, Blogarama, BlogCatalog, Blogdirs, Blog Flux, Bloghub, Blog Listing, Blogtoplist, BritBlog, Technorati
Bookmarks (12): Delicious, Digg, Diigo, Fark, Mixx, MyBlogLog, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz
Comment Systems (2): DISQUS, IntenseDebate
Free Directory Listings (25): Akama, Bateekh, BizHWY, Cardboard, CrunchBase, DMOZ, EVliving, GetFreeListing, Google Local, IllumiRate, Jayde, Jigsaw, Librarians’ Internet Index, Little Web Directory, Manta, MerchantCircle, NextMark, Simple Directory, Spoke, SuperPages, Tradevibes, TurnPike, WebBuyersGuide, Web World, Yahoo! Local
Marketing Trends (2): Google Trends, Universe Trends
Name Checks (2): Namechk, Usernamecheck
Post Documents (3): eHow, Google Docs, Scribd
Post Presentations (3): AuthorSTREAM, Myplick, Slideshare
Post Videos (2): Vimeo, YouTube
Press Releases: (4): i-Newswire, PR.com, PressReleasePoint, PRLog.org
Publish Articles (5): ArticleDashboard, Articles FACTORY, Ezinearticles, IdeaMarketers, Yahoo Articles Group
Social Networks (8): Biznik, Crowdvine, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, NowPublic, Plaxo, Viadeo
Twitter Tools (5): Grader, Ping, TweetDeck, TweetLater, Twitter
URL Shorteners (4): bit.ly, doiop, memurl, TinyURL
Wikis (3): Pbwiki, Wetpaint, Wikipedia
Tip: Since PageRank is important to your exposure on the Google search engine results page (SERP), you may want to check out the page rank for each of these services as well. That can be done for free online by using the PageRank Checker (higher = better).
Tip: adding your blog to the directories can improve your search rankings and exposure; the same is true for your web site and your business. That’s the reason for including 35 directory listings (25 free directory listings + 10 blog directories) in the top 100. You only need to do it once, so take advantage of them.
Question: Web 3.0 is to ? as Web 2.0 is to social media…
Your feedback is welcome!
How to save 63% on your DMA*09 hotel rooms
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 Thank you, William Shatner. Priceline saved me 63% on my hotel expense at the upcoming DMA*09 conference in San Diego. I got a room at the Omni San Diego for $96/night (versus the special conference rate of $259/night). That's $815 savings for my 5-night stay.
More accurately, thank you to Marty Shaw of Global-Z International for giving me this tip that has saved us thousands of dollars. Marty, I owe you!
DMA*09 is the premier conference of the year for anyone who wants to connect with their customers directly. With this tough economy, it might be hard to justify the cost and I know from experience that hotel rooms are one of the biggest items on the expense report. Here's one way to cut that cost significantly:
- Go to priceline.com
- click on "name your own price" for hotels
- Enter "San Diego, CA USA" as location and your travel dates then click the "Bid Now" button
- Choose "Downtown Dan Diego & Harbor Island"
- Choose your star level (I chose "4-star deluxe")
- Name your price (I bid $96)
- Enter your name and hit next
- Follow instructions to provide payment information
- Cross your fingers and hit the submit button
I hope this helps you get to the show. If you are there, please stop by NextMark's booth #1930. You can learn how to "reach your market" through new "life changing" technology that finally bridges the gap between data cards and data.
Are you wasting 79.4% or your postage and printing?
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
Ellen Paul at Paul & Partners does a good job of explaining problems and solutions for mailing list hygiene in her "Dear upset client…" article.
I don't know if her story is a true one. If it is, it's a sad story of a house file with 79.4% bad data. But I am guessing this is a fictional compilation of true stories from various clients over the years. It's a good summary of how a mailing list can be neglected and how to fix it.
Think about the postage and printing savings and ROI improvements by keeping your mailing list clean.