You all have probably heard of the Palm Pre, the new smartphone devised — with scrupulous attention to the hush-hush factor — as a giant-killer of sorts (the giant being, of course, the Apple iPhone).  All the buzz resulting from Sprint and Palm’s guerrilla marketing had gotten to me, plus I knew the phone would fit my life as a mom and a multichannel marketing consultant.  So I knew I wanted a Pre the day they came out — Saturday, June 6.

I called a couple of nearby Sprint stores to make sure they’d have them in stock and was told they were only slated to receive two per store.  Well, I’m a gambler, so I says to myself, what idiot would get up early with those odds?  So I slept in, only to find out later from the myriad internet posts on the subject that there were more than that at most stores and most didn’t sell out until noon or later!

This made me upset, but I still wanted one.  However, the folks at the Sprint stores told me they wouldn’t be in stock again until the end of the month.  And moreover, they are completely unavailable on the web — you cannot order one from sprint.com or from palm.com.  So I waited and stewed.  And then realized through internet buzz that if I had gotten on a waiting list at a store I probably would have had a phone in hand by then!  So I finally got on the waiting list at my local Sprint store two weeks after the launch date.  And guess what — when I called several days later to see where I was on the list, they couldn’t find me!  I had to go to the bottom of the list again, despite complaining firmly.  The next day I got a call from the manager, who had found my name and gave me a nice apology, but I can see why Sprint is the worst-regarded of the cell phone carriers.

As for the reason behind all this runaround, I am not sure if Sprint and Palm are playing a marketing game in which lack of inventory increases demand, or if they simply cannot ship enough to satisfy what demand already exists.  Either way it’s short-sighted.  Especially given the new iPhones (one half the price of the Pre!) that were announced two days later and quickly made available at apple.com.

The moral of this particular story for a multichannel marketer is that you will lose brand equity, the respect of your customers, and many, many orders if you play a marketing game badly.  Better to stay off the field entirely.  Apple has been able to do it successfully and generate long lines at their stores as well as happy, loyal customers.  But for the marketer who rests on laurels and assumes the customers will wait and the orders will continue to flow in because it’s a quality product, I say, “Be very careful.”

From a marketing best practices point of view, Sprint and Palm should have had a lot more phones available and should’ve enabled online ordering , even if backorders were a foregone conclusion.  In addition, it would have been advisable to fully brief the stores on when the next phones would become available so they could in turn inform their customers.

With this shortsighted marketing strategy I believe Sprint and Palm have squandered all that buzz they got throughout the spring, but only time will tell if I’m right.  As for me, I finally got my phone and couldn’t be happier with it, but they nearly lost a customer, which neither company can afford.

Alexandra Singer is a multichannel marketing consultant at LENSER, with a strong background in circulation management.  When not providing clients with excellent service and making her team laugh, she lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and young daughter and enjoys writing and trying out for Jeopardy! in her "spare" time.

As my partners and colleagues rolled back into town from the Internet Retailer conference, one of the latest myths regarding conferences was again dashed asunder. That's the one that says, "People don't attend conferences anymore - companies won't pay to send their people - everyone's too busy to leave the office for three days..." and so on.

Balderdash!

From all accounts, Internet Retailer had healthy attendance from both vendors and clients alike. Why? Content, content, content. And world-class networking about something everyone wanted to talk about.

Now, i have to admit, i missed this one. My trip to Peru got me in too late to attend. Which i don't regret for a millisecond! But the reviews for what there was to learn, to share, to implement... they're outstanding.

Another one that just got fabulous attendance was the Fancy Food show at the Javits Center in NYC. Our director of creative services, Otis Maxwell, attends that every year. Otis and i have a history of great work in the food marketing world, and along with it being a great place to prospect for this kind of work that we love so much, Otis is a dedicated foodie. Big time.

A few weeks before the DM Days in NY were a graveyard. Shocking, seeing that NYDM was giving the DMA a run for its money only ten years ago, with world class keynoters and heavy attendance. How the mighty have fallen.

In contrast, the Fancy Food show had exactly what people wanted to see, to learn about, to try out, to find out what was the latest and the greatest - and they made a point of getting there to see it first hand, and be in on the innovation.

That's what makes a conference worth going to... innovation presented in an environment where it is easy to see what's possible, and how to implement this stuff NOW, to make a difference in your business.

That's what we have in mind with the upcoming LENSER Summit (shameless promotion to follow) - the programming is going to be more dynamic than ever, with more emphasis than ever on what's making web and email work, how to make it work better, how to track and measure, how it all comes together in a multichannel environment to power up with successful technology and intelligence, and blast you into success in the coming years.

Mark it on your calendar, Sept 23-24-25. Call for more information and get your flight lined up - it's going to be the smartest thing you've done all year. OH yes, and be sure to bring your bike shorts for the final, Friday afternoon if you want to enjoy some of nation's most beautiful cycling. Oh yes, there's golf too...

To read Otis' account in his blog about the Fancy Food show click here. 

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

For about two months I've been a semi-active participant in Twitter. Much of what i see is kind of garbage ("Saw new Star Trk. Want 2 die, Spock is a doll.") or links to self-serving "articles" for lead generation. It's a free country, Twitter's a fun new media, and they are allowed to do that.

But about a month ago I saw on a TWEET from Alex Bogusky how Crispin Porter Bogusky had posted an intern available for hire on EBAY!

Now, never mind that the ebay idea to auction an intern is just outrageously good — I never would have known that this intern was even available on ebay, except that Alex told us in Twitter on May 20th.

I was following it on ebay until I left for Peru on vacation so I was not sure how it ended up but suffice it to say I am certain the intern got a fabulous job at some high visibility company. His or her career is off to a glowing start...

Here is the link for the final bid and sale - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270392380113

The Q&A on the bottom of the ebay page tells more about where the money goes that is finally paid in the final bid.

Now, in case anyone reading this thinks that they can auction THEIR interns off on eBay, i'd say that it's a testament to a powerful brand, that CPB is regarded highly enough that someone would be willing to spend $17,000 just to win the right to hire one of their interns. Most of us, as proud as we are of our training programs, wouldn't rate that highly. Sigh.

And speaking of using Twitter as a job-search and employee-finding network...

I notice that there is also a tweet out on June 2nd telling of job openings at CPB and then on June 3 from Alex to people who have submitted resumes, with an update.

Here is another note from his twitter page -
"Folks have been wondering what is up with the guy who started the twitter drive to get hired. We hired him. @chriskahle http://is.gd/yWEh3:09 PM May 20th from web "

Anyway, while much of Twitter is useless junk like "standing in line at the grocery store." (oh Brittney, i really care where you are!!) there are flashes of brilliance and some truly out-of-the-box ideas one can cull if you follow some really interesting and smart people.

You can see why I am following Alex Bogusky. It’s some of the smartest stuff to read in Twitter as far as I’m concerned. May i continue to be selective about what i tweet, and may it be of some value to those who follow me... all 40 of them.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

I don't get American Idol's popularity, but I am not a big TV fan.  While I would rather get a cavity filled than sit through a whole episode of this program, I find it facinating how much attention this show and others like it continue to receive.  I have to admit to watching clips on-line, and to even forwarding the now famous clip of Susan Boyle (from Britain's got Talent fame).  We really have become not only multi channel consumers, but multi media consumers as well.  Not only do we have the ability to instantly gain access to nearly information or content we want, but also have become very good at ignoring that which we are not interested in seeing.
 
What really strikes me is how we, as consumers of all media have become very much like the judges sitting at those American Idol auditions.  We are bombarded with messages constantly-from television screens attached to gas pumps to our pda's with access to the internet at all times.   I realized one day that in one of my four email accounts that it was easier to click "check all" and then uncheck the ones I wanted to keep, to clean out my in-box than it was to delete them one at a time.  This is the equivalent of sorting your mail over the trash can which many of us started doing years ago.  Many of us are now using mobile devices or tiny computers to browse the web.  With that in mind, wise multi channel marketers will continue to tailor marketing messages  to today's multiple and varying way potential customers consume (or ignore) those messages. 

Ever notice you can still make out what some commercials are advertising while you are skimming through them with your "Tivo" device?  That's not an accident!  Ever notice that the web sites you typically frequent from your mobile device are the ones that have optimized their content for mobile devices?  As multi channel marketers we need to constantly think of ways to communicate with our customers or prospects on their terms, and with content that fits into their lifestyles....or risk being voted off by the judges.

 Tom Blake is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.

In a recent discussion, I was reminded of how few creatives ever get a look at the database they're writing/designing to appeal to. To my mind, they may as well be sitting at the computer with a blindfold and ear plugs.

It now amazes me that creatives will be given an assignment to do writing and/or design without this information. WHY....

a) does a creative not ask to see information about the database, including both demographics and psychographics, and

b) do the ones giving the assignment not demand a connection between the design and copy, and the database information.

Creative and database information are still kept in silos, even in some world-class agencies!

Supidity, naivite or laziness? who knows? But i can tell you, when you power up creative with database information, you get unbeatable results.

Regarding this topic, if anyone here wants to dig deeper, be sure to start reading anything by Arthur Middleton Hughes.

His book Strategic Database Marketing: The Masterplan for Starting and Managing a Profitable, Customer-Based Marketing Program is unsurpassed. Arthur also has written a book about Successful Email Marketing Strategies that I have not yet read but expect it to be awesome.

Arthur may well have been one of the founders of modern database marketing - but he's no codger! He keeps very current and is as inquisitive as someone brand new in the field. I had the pleasure of working with him for about three years, and my understanding of the connection between the database and creative blossomed during that time.

Ask your creative team what they know about your market - your customer. Their psychographic profile. Their demographic profile. (If you don't know the answer to that, be sure to find out before you ask them!!)  If they give you the wrong answer or act like "who cares? i'm just a designer" then it's time to change that in a hurry.

I call this Intelligent Creative® and i can guarantee that you'll get measurably better results, the more engaged your creative team is in the power of your database.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

I got some news today about the ACMA Forum through our friends at Multichannel Merchant. An article that caught my eye was "Live from the ACMA Forum: Potter Predicts Five-day Mail Delivery Will Be Reality."

I've been a fan of cutting back one delivery day for a long, long time. Half the time i don't even get to reading my mail for a few days, when i'm busy or traveling. And this article looks like good news - Our clients need some relief from the ongoing government hand digging deeper and deeper into their pockets just because the USPS hasn't been able to manage to get costs controlled. They've been trying but there are other forces at work that we don't immediately see, so of course the USPS gets hammered for it.

Anyway, i read the article and....whaaaaa??? I can't believe that U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA)— chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce, says that he sees the need to have yet another study on the cost savings and impact of a five day delivery plan.

Oh come on, now ... this thing has been studied to death. I was told by someone within the USPS this past year that they'd done many studies on it.  Give me a calculator and i'll figure it out for them for goodness sake!

Is there a politician alive who doesn't love wasting our money on a study that duplicates a study that duplicates a study that duplicates a study??

The time is here and now to get off their butts and give the USPS permission and the tools they need to stop bleeding money.

Am I the only one who thinks there is probably plenty of information for them to make a decision at this point?

The savings I've heard about don't get them completely out of trouble but the numbers are still a far sight better than the pickle they're in right now.

Let's provide some relief and see if we can't stop blaming (and over-charging) our mailers for this idiocy of procrastination, while the USPS continues to lose billions of dollars. Stop the politicking and just solve the problem.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

The fonts that continually test best are the serif fonts with as little "fancy styling' as possible. The serifs help the eye to "catch" key phrases, and this is how many people read and comprehend material.

Sans Serif fonts like Helvetica, Arial, etc. fare poorly in these tests. While as a designer i admire the work it took to develop many of these fonts, for pure reading pleasure and comprehension nothing beats serif fonts. And when people enjoy reading your book, your catalog, your direct mail etc., they are more likely to keep reading and find something they like.

My recommendations are Adobe Caslon, Palatino, ITC Weidemann, Monotype Garamond, and one i found recently called Albertina. Do not go light with any of these fonts - use the standard weight. To see what these fonts look like visit www.fonts.com where you can even try them out.

Headlines and captions do OK in sans serif fonts because there is much less copy to be comprehended. Make sure that headlines or subheads are many points larger than the body copy and much heavier.

In Wheildon's book he also covers where colored type will reduce comprehension. Frankly some of it is simple common sense, but much of it is a revelation. Every time i see yellow or orange or pale green type used for a headline i laugh at the sheer idiocy of it. Wheildon's study shows how this will reduce comprehension to only a tiny fraction of what it would have been... but this is common sense! is there any of that left in the design world? RULE OF THUMB - higher contrast is best - darkest type always trumps light type and low contrast.

This book is a fun read too - Wheildon is an entertaining writer.

Condensed serif fonts do not test as well so even if it saves space it will hurt comprehension.

There will doubtless be people who are saying, 'This is old fashioned, and not modern. People like cleaner, sans serif fonts."

Well, folks, this is human physiology and has more to do with the rods and cones of the eyes than style. The human eye has not changed in millions of years even if styles change. It's the way the brain functions.

Sans Serif fonts, especially light and/or condensed ones, fare the worst in printed material, reducing comprehension to only about 20 to 30% of what it would have been if it had been a good serif font.

Font size is the other issue - 9 pt. minimum for narrow columns. Never let any line of type get longer than 65 characters. 10 pt. is a better choice - even 11 or 12. Give it 2 to 3 extra points of leading. NOW, that is something a customer will enjoy reading - and respond to.

ONLINE is a different story because monitors vary so much in resolution - there, i recommend Verdana rather than Arial, because it is better balanced and more to the 'proportion' that matches what Wheildon recommends.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

One of the most difficult things about working in lean times is the reduction of personnel. Most of us feel it but in design and production departments that's where you're likely to see it - and where it can effect your bottom line.

Less hands in production mean that while deadlines don't change, time must be made up with shortcuts and reduction in production quality. Sometimes proofreaders are left out of the loop and then you're skating on thin ice.

That's why i'm thrilled to discover a website where good quality, FREE webinars are being given in InDesign and PhotoShop. The site is called Creativetechs.com and I learned about it from a colleague in Los Angeles. Proof once more of how it's so worthwhile to have a community of professionals who do what you do - even if you're not living near them.

Even if you only use InDesign occasionally, the course is ten weeks and it is FREE. It is a daytime course but it's only an hour including Q&A.

Back when i had my own studio - and it was a VERY busy catalog and direct mail design and production studio with three of us working long hours - i invested in my employees' education, making sure if they wanted to take a course that would benefit our efficiency and quality, they could do it even if it meant they would miss a little bit of work. I paid for their courses and i never once regretted that decision - good education always pays off.

In this case the course is FREE.

You who have employees who are using this software should enforce that they attend.

Most of the designers and production people i meet think they are expert in these programs but most are sadly mistaken - anyone, but ANYONE who is self-taught in any of the Adobe programs is missing some essential efficiencies that will make them work faster and more accurately. 

And in lean times, speed and accuracy buy you the time for better quality too.

HERE IS HOW TO SIGN UP FOR THIS COURSE!
http://creativetechs.com/freeindesigncourse

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

As we continue to plug along through this already-over-a-year-old recession I've found myself looking for information in writing that supported the fact that those who market in down times are the ones who experience a bigger breakthough once times get better.

Searching through direct marketing publications, online, and in my formidible archives, I was coming up with "nuthin', nada, niente, bupkus"...

And then like a ray from the heavens comes an article from Adweek, April 6th, regarding the automobile industry. Granted, most of those reading this are not in the automobile industry as in Auto Makers. But the article is still relevant and echoes what I've read every time we have a recession... spend more than you planned to now, spend it more wisely than you have ever done before, and be ready for a bigger jump once things open up.

While at LENSER our advice in marketing best practices always provides the wise advice you need (shameless plug), there are many out there who allow themselves to be run by fear and hold back, hoping the rocking car won't roll down the hill.

However, this article noted that for the five-year period between 2003 and 2008, while the auto industry took on the trend of spending less on advertising (down 7%), Hyundai actually increased their advertising budget by 38%.

And the payoff is apparent - the ones who dropped their advertising expenditures by 7% (let's assume this also includes direct marketing although most of these guys do a pretty mediocre job with their direct marketing campaigns) went from $9.0 billion in sales down to $8.4 billion. Meanwhile, scrappy little Hyundai went from $241 million in 2003 up to $332 million in 2008.

Hyundai's general advertising agency is Goodby Silverstein & Partners - a formidible group and one of the smartest agencies out there. I had the pleasure of working with them back in the late 90s when between GS and my team, we helped American Isuzu to hit record numbers for a brief time even in spite of getting nailed by a bad report by Consumer Reports (later proven falsified by hardly anyone heard about that.)  My team was handling their direct mail, as Goodby was doing the brand and advertising.

Then as Isuzu's management went through its typical politics, ebbs and flows, they decided to move everything into a famous not-to-be-named agency that was supposed to be good at everything. But they cost so much, Isuzu was never again able to do the level or quality of advertising that Goodby had provided them -- and they never again did a successful direct marketing program. What a contrast - They were getting work so successful we were winning Echo Awards every year and even the coveted Postal Forum award, and two years later, they were doing no direct marketing and sinking like a stone in quicksand.

So i've seen it with my own eyes - stop marketing and watch yourself die a slow and painful death.

Market smartly and efficiently (as we've been helping our clients to, through essential tracking of smarter mailing, killer email programs and highly intelligent website programs) and you'll catapult yourself into the good times.

You'll be seen as the one to do business with, because you've been there all along, serving them with great customer service, solid merchandise and constant presence, which sets customers at ease. Make yourself seen and heard; sell yourself using first and foremost your unique selling proposition - and people will think of you first.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

The American Catalog Mailers Association released the USPS's final ruling for the new Slim Jim requirements.

Effective September 8, 2009: Depending on where the spine or final fold is, the trim size, and the cover stock weight, the majority of slim jim catalogs will need to have 3 NON PERFORATED tabs, measuring 1.5" placed in very specific locations on the mail piece. These standards must be met in order to qualify for machinable or automation letter prices.

You will need to consult with your printer for specific rules regarding the style, size, and weight of your own catalog. As direct mail marketing professionals, the standards are concerning in that they are now requiring 3, relatively large, non-perforated tabs to be attached to each mail piece. While this standard will ease the automation on the USPS's machines, it also provides a fairly large shopping barrier for consumers. Trying to rip apart 2 perforated tabs was tricky enough!

Anna-Lisa Ulbrich is a Senior Multi Channel Marketing consultant at LENSER. When she is not thinking about Database Marketing, she can be found cheering for the Oakland A's now that baseball season has finally started.

I am addicted to the internet, and love keeping pace with the latest and greatest trends.  I can't help but see it through the eyes of a multi channel marketer and try to see how these trends may impact how we talk to our customers.
Facebook for example, has made great strides with their marketing, and I've received updates (from my friends) about various products and services.  Coming from my friends, the messages break through filters and carry a great deal more weight.  Viral marketing, as it has become known is a fitting name as it grows and expands in ways that are difficult to keep up with, and I find it fascinating.  How many of you have Google in your pockets as you go shopping?  Have you ever done a price comparison in the store, or sought out another source for the products or services you were attempting to access while out and about?  

Well I was curious about this "Twitter" phenomenon of late.  I am a cycling junkie, and follow Lance Armstrong in the news on a regular basis.  Lately the main source of his news updates (even from mainstream sources) has been through his "Tweets" (I can't stand that word) or updates from his twitter account.    Even during the President's speech a few weeks back, a lot of news came out about various Twitter communications by members of congress.  (Does anyone else think that is rude...to be sending twitter updates during a meeting with your boss?)

I decided to see what the big deal was, and was a bit confused...I guess I expected there to be more content....more to the twitter site.  "What am I doing right now?"  is that all the site is about.... I mean, who cares really?  I feel a bit weird keeping the world updated with what I'm doing and who really wants to get a text from me to tell them "Tom is going to the bank"...to each their own I guess, then I saw it through the eyes of a marketer...and it is subtle but brilliant.  There is Lance, with his nearly 466,000 people following him, telling them that he bought his tickets to Jane's Addiction.  Wow...I loved that band.  I didn't even know they were touring.  Next thing you know I'm looking for tickets myself.  Thanks Lance!  

Tom Blake is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.

Conference season is coming up and we're all working away on our presentations to provide some great content about direct marketing, creative, multichannel marketing, etc... but no matter how rich the content is, one of the most essential parts of the presentation is the style and capability of the speaker.

The most fabulous direct marketing training content is useless if the presenter doesn't have the finesse and style to keep the room comfortable and interested.

Recently i was asked to submit an entry for a book about presenting, and specifically, if anything had gone wrong at some time, how did we fix it? This was my entry:

A colleague of mine (Creative director extraordinaire Howard Schnieder) and I were presenting at the Los Angeles DM School (part of the direct marketing club of southern california) some years ago. This was an annual event (I taught this class for a good 10 to 12 years!) and THIS incident was back in the 'olden days' when we still used slides.

We made the mistake of using the 140 slide tray instead of the 80 because the projector was in the back of the room, and we determined that for each segment, we needed the 140 tray - so we didn't have to run to the back and change the tray.

But those 140 trays were famous for jamming.

So we were about a half hour into the program and a slide jammed. I went back to unjam it as Howard "riffed", and I struggled with it but no dice. The class was casual, so we told the attendees to 'talk among themselves' and Howard came back to help me unjam it. The security rim was really stuck to the tray of slides!

So Howard grabbed one side of the tray, and i grabbed the rim on the other side, and we pulling in as controlled a way as we can ... and all of a sudden, YANK! The top pulled off of the slide tray and 140 slides scattered everywhere.

This is a presentation that took hours and hours to put together, and the slides were on about 6 different kinds of direct marketing creative. Our heads nearly exploded when we saw what had happened.

But Howard is a pro, and so am I. One thing we've learned is that the class is only as comfortable as you are. So we told the students to take a 15 minute break, and we did our best to throw the slides back in in as close to proper groups as possible, and then... on with the show!

Before we started up again we told our students, laughing because what else were we gonna do? -- that this was going to be even more interesting than it was before the mess, because we'd be bouncing around a bit in topics - but it would all tie together in the end.

The students were really great, and we had some big laughs while we presented - and meanwhile everyone was on their toes through the presentation. In fact, i think they learned MORE than if we'd just chugged along in the traditional order of the evening!

If there's a moral to this story, it is that no mess, no matter how uncontrolled and frightening it is at the time, is unfixable in one way or another. In fact, sometimes it leads to an unexpected benefit. As we are looking at the messes we have to contend with in the financial world, in the business world and even personally as a result of situations out of our control, we are each finding new courage and new ways to improvise. And we'll all come out stronger in the end and proud of ourselves for accomplishing a lot in the face of adversity.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

OK, I'll admit it. I am a shill for Amazon. Maybe my story can help other multichannel retailers see the light, er, APP.

This past Fall, my wife and I were planning for the usual holiday gift buying onslaught. Besides cutting back on the budget like everyone else in the country, we swore we would go on-line for almost everything. 

So one weekend in November (post election day I'm sure) I went to the Amazon website and signed up for the yearly $79 PRIME shipping.  Little did I know what effect this would have on my purchasing behavior. When I started seeing Amazon boxes on the porch  in TWO Days after we ordered, I thought 'why not just buy everything at Amazon?'

Pretty soon we had a mountain of boxes with that goofy Amazon Smile logo piling up in the living room.



Nearly every box came two days after placing the order, so my wife and I could sit down at our convenience and wrap. If we forgot something, we'd just go to the laptop and not worry about all the extra clicks for shipping costs, e-mail newsletter options, etc. Amazon made it easy, almost too easy.

Now I have the new Amazon I-phone app, which offers 1 click ordering. It's almost scary how fast I can order up that new GPS or Blu-ray player.


While the App is cool, I still think that the PRIME shipping and ease of ordering is what really hooked us in to Amazon this holiday season. It would behoove any multichannel merchant to emulate the Amazon experience. Run the numbers and see what it would take to offer a free shipping program.  Create a phone ordering application.  Make it EASY for the customer.
I think Amazon was one of the few exceptions to the dismal 4th quarter retail sales in 2008. Like I said at the beginning, I'm a shill.

Matt Morton is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant. When not attending sporting events involving his over-scheduled children, he works with a variety of B2C direct marketing companies.

Yes, that's the headline I'd love to see the day after the session i'm running for the upcoming ACCM session, titled Kooky or Unconventional Copy etc. etc. I just got my second speaker, from ThinkGeek.com who has about the kookiest copy i've ever read. And if you're the market for their gifts, the copy works like mad - you just can't stop reading it.

My other speaker, Rhett from Bounty Hunter, is so entertaining to speak with on the phone, i can imagine how much the audience is going to like him. Their copy is certainly spontaneous reading, offbeat and entertaining - everywhere you look, their website, their emails, their catalog. Juicy stuff.

When it comes to multi channel marketing, there is little that will hold campaigns and media together better than honest and heartfelt copy that is consistent across the board. And while we know that marketing best practices include consistency, it often disappears in the creative realm. Web developers are asked to pull copy from catalog sheets or spread sheets written by someone other than the one who wrote the catalog, etc.  But keep in mind, it really takes a terrific copywriter to do it right.

So it is going to be an intriguing, fun and exciting session at the ACCM - a chance to show our attendees how they can be empowered to develop their own special voice that sells, and yet speaks with intimacy to their audience. Nothing sells better than one good friend talking to another - it's time to open up the lines of communication between you and your customer.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

I recently observed that the relationship between the national government and private sector is undergoing a significant change at present.   With all the media coverage, it is easy to understand and extremely visible.  For better or for worse, the market will no longer be allowed to regulate itself.  President Obama’s policies will make sure of that.

Consumer behavior is also undergoing a significant change.  That change has been in progress for some time and is also easy to understand.  The difference between the two changes is that the relationship between the government and private sector changes with each political era.  The change in the consumer relationship with retail has just changed for the first time and will not return to its roots in the foreseeable future.   The consumer is demanding the ability to choose what marketing messages they will participate in.  There are some brand persuasions that work below the surface in the unconscious realm, but day-to-day marketing messages are increasingly difficult to get through to the consumer.

As Direct Marketers, what does that mean to our current marketing demands?  It is critical that we all accept the new role consumers are playing in marketing practices and be proactive in our strategies.  As direct marketing professionals, we are all positioned well for this transition.   Even the smallest direct marketing company has experience and database resources that are very valuable.  It is time for marketing professionals to revisit the performance of our various media channels with an eye to both ROI and accessibility to our customers.  

Geoff Wolf is a Direct Marketing Consultant who offers 30 years of executive and entrepreneurial experience gained from creating success for his own businesses and success for his consulting clients.
What Geoff brings to LENSER clients is unique in that Geoff has “done it all” from multichannel marketing to merchandising to “shipping the packages out the door” in a direct marketing environment.  Geoff has worked and continues to work with a variety of clients and projects in the areas of Database Marketing Best Practices, B2B Marketing Services and Brand Marketing. 

I'm thinking I might get some comments from my Multi Channel Marketing friends with that title.  The death of the print channel, I hear it all the time.  I honestly believe that print media is getting a bad rap, however if you still consider yourself a catalog marketer, that has got to change.  In recent articles I've thrown gas on the fire myself with references to the phone book (when was the last time you used one?)
Okay, so I get texts about elderly women reading books on airplanes with Amazon's Kindle (thank you Todd!), and how on-line social media is growing in popularity with all demographics and it's true.  I canceled most of my magazine subscriptions and seldom read a newspaper, however I do believe that for your true fans, a well designed catalog is still vital.  Don't believe me?  Try skipping the Valentine's Day card to that special person next year and simply send an email or a text instead.  Better yet, just update your Facebook status to let them know your thinking of them. 
A better test might be to hold out a small panel of buyers from receiving a catalog and measuring their performance across all channels for a time period.  These marketing contact strategy tests are not new; we at LENSER have been promoting them for a long time, however they must be set up and measured correctly. 
At the very least, chart your orders (by week) by channel for the last two years.  Do the spikes for web sales follow the spikes for catalog?  Do the spikes correlate with significant marketing events such  as catalog drops? 

I'm not a traditionalist clinging to the past.  I started as a Catalog Marketing Analyst a long time ago.  Since then silos have been broken and multi channel marketing effectively relies more and more on implementing database marketing best practices. 
While prospecting through the print channel has become increasingly more difficult, be careful before you completely discount the value of mailing active customer file. 

Tom Blake is a Multichannel Marketing Consultant specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management. He works with a variety of B2C and B2B Direct Marketing companies; both with retained clients and performing marketing best practice reviews.

Through the years one of the most intriguing and compelling tools available to the direct marketing and catalog creative is color. Yet today, most creatives don't have a clue as to how to use color! And they certainly haven't been bothered to learn about its power and capability.

What's worse, they're actually dangerous when it comes to their MISUSE of color, both in color choices and in using color in headlines, body copy, photography backgrounds and more. Dangerous in the sense that the work they do will measurably depress response for their clients or the company they work for.

A recent study confirmed what I've known for years - that different colors trigger different brain reactions. And it's not how you might think.

For example, those who never use red on a financial mailing because they 'think' that it spells "danger" are mistaken to ignore it completely - because red is a hell of an attention-getter if used judiciously. This study, according to lead researcher, Juliet Zhu of the Universlty of British Columbia, shows that red improves attention to detail.

Blue - a color associated with things that are staid and secure, has an added benefit - there are versions of the color that spark creativity!

Hey, no wonder we LENSER folks are so creative - that's our logo color. But again, you must choose when to use it and when to not over-use it.

That's because any color over-used loses its power. Just like any word over-used becomes a cliche - something to ignore.

Here are a few other tidbits from this study: the subjects memorized more words when a list of words was on a red screen. When viewing a blue screen, subjects became more efficient at developing new ideas and solutions.

But as some may have predicted, an ad with a red background made people focus on what to avoid! This can get dangerous; if you're selling something that will help avert a problem it may work, but if you're selling product with a positive message then it's counter to the color ... and there goes your sales.

Reminds me of any number of catalog spreads and covers this past season where the whole background was a massive blob of red. Don't they realize how unappealing that is? Makes my teeth ache ... eccch ...plus it's killing sales. But many creatives don't know when to stop! So you who are supervising creatives need to pay attention - there will be some wrangling to do!

The writings of Dr. Siegfried Vogele and Mr. Colin Whieldon have confirmed to us colors that are lousy for comprehension when used for typography - just about any headline set in any but the darkest colors becomes a waste of space, the comprehension drops so low. Yet again and again I see light green headlines on direct mail packages and on catalog covers. D'oh!

Is there a designer out there who even cares about response to become educated? This information is out there ready to be read and used. And those who have uneducated designers are missing out on response, and sales.

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every direct marketing project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

The Super Bowl not only show cases the best two teams in the NFL battling it out for four and a half hours, top companies also break out their big guns to battle for the title of best Super Bowl commercial. 

With the overwhelming popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, companies not only had to fork out the $3 Million to buy a 30 second television ad, they also had to branch out to other forms of media to help capture their audience.  With today's younger, more tech savvy crowd, television is becoming less and less of marketing tool to seal the deal when it comes to selling a product.  Companies now have to go that extra mile to sell that bag of chips, or can of soda.  According to an article from Reprise Media, 25 percent of all Super Bowl advertisers linked their landing pages to social networking sites.  Although this number is still fairly low, a majority of companies rely on such social networking sites to help spread the word about their product.  With how fast technology is advancing, that 25 percent will most likely come closer to 50 or even 60 percent by this time next year. 

Aside from using social networking sites to drive traffic to your site, companies also followed the golden rule that most, if not all Direct Mail companies’ use, make sure your audience has a way to contact your site.  Companies such as E*Trade and CareerBuilder.com made sure to include their URL in their commercials to ensure that viewers will know where to go when looking for them on the Internet.

Although television commericals are still a popular form of advertising, unfortunately times are changing and businesses need to do much more than come up with a clever commerical to sell their product. 

Branden Slattery is Multichannel Marketing Analyst for LENSER, specializing in database marketing and catalog circulation management.  When he is not putting together Matchback presentations, he can be found hitting the slopes in Lake Tahoe, enjoying the company of his Fiancee, or training for his Summer hike to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
 

I have the pleasure of actually knowing my neighbors - which to those of you who live outside of California may seem like an odd thing to say, but here, it is a bit unusual. Anyway, what's really interesting is that some of them actually remember what i do for a living. I'm called, alternately, the catalog queen, or the direct mail maven, or the website expert. Oh, why not.

And one of my insideious little pleasures is derived from when my neighbors pass to me some of their 'junk mail'. It's often very different from mine, a testament to the power of modern database marketing.

I got a real eyeful last week, however, which my neighbor Jerry shared three pieces that were in his mailbox, for his 13 year old nephew, who lives with them. It was all mail from US Military branches - Army, National Guard and Marines.

Now I seem to recall some years ago that there were laws against sending unsollicited mail to 13 year old kids. I first encountered it when I was selling RCA Home Videos to families (because we coudn't sell to kids directly). And then some of you may remember the debacle of the pharmaceutical company linking up with a drugstore chain to send unsolicited presecription drug samples (I think it may have been someting like Zoloft) to prospects who were drugstore customers, and they ended up going to teenagers instead of parents. Ooopsie.

Maybe the rules about soliciting to kids has changed - but seeing these three military solications all within a week, to a 13-year-old was pretty shocking. Obviously someone decided that this kid should see glamorous photos of guys and gals, hangin' out together, doing electronics, playing basketball, and dressed civvies or in clean, nifty uniforms. Start seducing them into the service.

Note, I have no problem with the service, by the way. I'm the daughter of a full colonel who first saw France via Omaha Beach. I understand the value and the sacrifice and I respect both the service and the need to recruit.  My problem is with the sloppy contractors who did the mailings!

With headlines like "Earn up to $40,000 with Active First*" and "Attending College? Starting a career? it just got easier." it's pretty heady stuff to start the early indoctrination of a 13 year old kid who wishes he had money and was grown up. Oh yes and the offers - one has FREE custom made Dog Tags - the other has two FREE movie ticket coupons inside. Man, it made ME want to call and sign up. Loved those dog tags!!

If i were to give them benefit of the doubt I'd say that this kid's friends signed him up for mail, as a joke. But that would only be one place. This is already three mailings, and counting.

Whoever is doing their database work isn't doing their job - they're sloppy and irresponsible. And whatever big mega-agency is doing this work for the US military service is really screwing it up in not watching their database more carefully. Hello? there is something called List Hygiene - ever heard of it?

This is our tax dollars at work, folks - paying for mailings to the wrong market - from the copywriting to the design to the printing and postage, and of course the cost of that database work. All out of our pockets, yours and mine.

Anyone got a problem with that?

Carol Worthington-Levy

Creative Director and LENSER Partner Carol Worthington-Levy is one of the nation’s only individual 8-time DMA Echo Award winners — in three categories: direct mail, catalog and eCommerce.

She is a seasoned Multi Channel Marketing Consultant and expert in Brand Marketing who helps LENSER round out our suite of Direct Marketing Services, directing her LENSER creative team to infuse quality and psychographic intelligence into the design, copywriting, and photography for every project, with an emphasis on outstanding measurable performance.

By Todd Miller, Director - Marketing & Client Services

Facebook.  YouTube.  Yelp.  Wikipedia.  Photobucket.  Craigslist.  Flickr.  IMDB.  Digg.  Cafepress.  Technorati.  Linkedin.  del.icio.us.

All of these "companies" (if we can call a few of them this, since they have yet to generate profits for their investors -- perhaps a better word would be "applications" or "content venues") have achieved popularity due to the significant amounts of user-generated content (UGC) supplied.  A few, in fact, are 100% UGC.

Multi channel retailers -- and, in particular, those financially vested in their success -- are on the rampage to monetize UGC-oriented sites.  I believe it will happen, but not anytime soon -- in fact, successful multi channel retailers will, I think, increasingly utilize UGC in their selling proposition.  Amazon and Zappo's are two examples among many -- and the list is growing.

Not every business, though, will be able to effectively utilize UGC -- an article in yesterday's eMarketer newsletter elaborates on this theme quite well. 

The article's final paragraph, I think, says it all:

"...[At] the same time revenue models elude UGC sites, they are still pulling attention away from traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, television and radio—and putting increased financial pressure on them at a time when they can least afford it." 

Traditional media includes catalogs and other forms of print advertising.

It's getting real noisy other there, folks -- the return on investment (ROI) of ALL advertising mediums is declining, due to the amount of time, energy and attention your customers are increasingly devoting to content mediums that are free of unsolicited advertisements for products and services. 

If your company has a selling proposition that is easily replicated, it's high time that changed.  If your company sells merchandise that is highly commoditized, that dozens of competing companies sell, and / or is easily price searched and compared, you will need every ounce of brand equity that has been built up over the years to survive this advertising sea change.

Ask yourself this, too:  when reading newspaper or magazine articles (albeit online, I'm sure), or listening to talk radio shows (even NPR), do you increasingly spend more time reading reader comments, or find more intriguing (but, admittedly, less informed) the insights of callers, as compared to the host and guest?

Todd Miller is the Director of LENSER's B-to-B Division with a dozen years of multi channel database marketing experience.  When he is not criss-crossing the country visiting clients, he can often be found in the LENSER Conference Room right around lunch time offering live-and-in-person advertising trend musings.