The Big Fat Marketing Blog

Aisle #6

Erik Hauser

It feels great to take a seat at a keyboard that I just haven’t been able to pull my chair up to in order to type the written word. Inspiration sometimes strikes in the oddest ways and in the oddest places – this time it was in the grocery store – Aisle #6 to be more exact!

We make our way through our days and try to make sure that we keep the happiness meter pinned all the way on happy. It’s just that life has a way of throwing curveballs sometimes and so we must adjust, refocus and head back into the game.

While out the other day, I was running low on my essential vitamin supply. So I asked my Dad if he wouldn’t mind stopping by the grocery store to see if they had any good deal on the vitamins and various supplements that I take. more

So how frequently do you email your best customers? Have you considered contacting them less?

That’s what StubHub is doing, by making an effort to let high volume users of the service know they have the choice to opt out of emails that are non-essential to their orders, says Kevin Smith, product manager at StubHub Inc. “We want to reduce the noise.”

StubHub has an admittedly wide demographic—anyone who is a fan of something and would want to buy a ticket to that thing’s performance.

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Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe seems past his boiling point as he rehashes crucial issues connected to the uncertain financial status of the U.S. Postal Service and its questionable viability in the future. In a recent interview in The Washington Post, Donahoe referred to the annual $5.5 billion obligation to prefund retirement costs for postal workers as a “$5.5 billion millstone” — and one “that has killed us financially.”

Given the ongoing talk of five-day mail delivery, consolidation of postal and mail processing facilities, and a proposal for a new healthcare plan for USPS employees, Donahoe needs help in the form of congressional discussions and subsequent approvals of various items. Donahoe gives the impression of someone screaming at the wind, banging his head against a wall, and getting nowhere.

“Page 23” is an award-winning short film from the 48 Hour Film Project in The Netherlands. The three Dutch filmmakers center the satiric film on a furniture catalog. It’s very entertaining! Take a look.

I have a friend who hates the idea of birthday wishes on Facebook. All you’re getting, he reasons, is a bunch of meaningless greetings from folks who would have never remembered your birthday if it hadn’t popped up in the corner of their Facebook home page.

Me, I kinda like it. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And I never remember to send cards to anyone myself, so it makes me feel way less guilty that folks who used to send me paper cards now type in Facebook greetings instead.

Birthday emails from companies I do business with, however, are another story. These aren’t manually sent out by someone who saw my name on a web page, they’re kicked out automatically by a database. Given this fact, can the ghost in the machine generate any warm and fuzziness from me towards these businesses?

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“Want to be a Stand-out Marketer? Get ahead with DMA Education” is the message on the cover of the Direct Marketing Association’s DMA Education mailing. It’s too bad it didn’t give its recipients a best-practices lesson in QR code usage.

The code used on the back cover of the catalog is to the right. If you have your mobile device handy, go ahead and scan it (Or just read on and I’ll fill you in). more