The Big Fat Marketing Blog

What’s the key to almost all successful direct marketing?

THE Data.

Isn’t it ironic then, that this week, at the office of my firm, Johnson Direct, we received three (3) ship-shape ECHO award call for entry pieces and two of the three were addressed to individuals who have never worked for Johnson Direct?

They included the company name and their titles, CEO and President with the wrong names. My piece was correct. Note: No other associate here received a piece, but two never-beens did.

Effective direct marketing is about credibility. more

As I’m in the process of relocating from England back to the U.S., I’ve been unsubscribing from myriad UK e-mail newsletters. And I’m disappointed—not by how difficult it has been, but rather by how laissez-faire companies seem to be about losing me as a subscriber. The same businesses that had courted me with “please subscribe, pretty please” on their Web sites and in their catalogs were letting me unsubscribe without so much as a “we’ll miss you” or “was it something we said?”

Okay, a few companies did include a form on their unsubscribe page asking why I was canceling. But just one not only asked why but also sent me a confirmation e-mail that made a point of saying how sorry it was sorry to see me go. I felt so warm and fuzzy after reading the e-mail that, had I not been moving, I would have reinstated my subscription then and there.

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