Friday, February 29, 2008

Tassimo takes it to the office

What do Kraft and RMI have in common? We both use office videos to add to our marketing efforts. First of all I love the Tassimo product and second, I love the whole "office" take off. It's a very creative, interactive approach to capturing a new audience.

Labels: video

Thursday, February 21, 2008

It's not all bad news

On the heals of the bad news about Sharper Image and Lillian Vernon there is some good news making headlines. Brookstone has seen an upswing in it's forth quarter 2007 sales. This translates into an overall increase for the entire 2007 year. Direct mail increased business not only through direct sales but by driving traffic to their retail outlets. Their multichannel marketing approach appears to be working.

Labels: multichannel marketing

Online "green-ness"?

Great article in DM News this week. Thanks to Debbie McLain for pointing it out. Sara Holoubek compares and contrasts just how green digital marketing is. With all of the electronic gadgets around, most of which aren't reusable or recyclable and use a huge amount of energy manufacturing, digital marketing isn't very carbon neutral. So now the big push is on to create more environmentally friendly gadgets. But just as we in the direct marketing industry must inform the public of our environmental efforts, the onus is on the online industry to follow suit.

Labels: green, marketing

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Mike's a writer!

He may not be producing best selling novels, but Mike Kertelits in brokerage guest blogged for the DMA Nonprofit Federation's - The Integrator. His article is titled "Scenes from Washington: The Dreaded Regulatory Session". We're so proud.

Labels: DMA Nonprofit Federation, postal regulation

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

On a rainy day some showers are acceptable

The name Tenreiro is not a particularly common name here in the US. So if you're active on our website you'll notice two staff members with that last name. Yup, you're right sparky, they are related... husband and wife, Nicole and Decio. But wait, there's more. They are expecting their first child in early March. So we had a little company baby shower for them (which we do for all our expectant parents). It's a nice mid afternoon tradition. Cheers to the little bundle.

We all await the arrival of the newest Tenreiro!

Labels: employees, RMI

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Recycle Please, please consider

Last year the DMA developed a Recycle Please campaign asking direct marketers to include their blue bin logo on outgoing mail pieces, encouraging its recipients to recycle. A good effort put forth by the DMA. But what if they were to go beyond just encouraging the general public and develop a strategy to get all DM'ers to recycle internally?

Here's my proposal: devise a extension of the Recycle Please campaign asking all DM'ers themselves to install recycling programs within their building (like we did in November). For each company that does, the DMA would partner with Arbor Day Foundation to plant 100 trees (or whatever amount) in a national forest.

The DMA could showcase logos of all participating companies on their microsite and include numbers of the amount of trees planted to date, and the amount of trees saved through recycling. The DMA could have a splash on their home page with the tallied figures. And, if the numbers are strong enough, they could site how many trees were used for mailings in 2007 countered by how many were saved and planted.

DM’ers would be encouraged to join in because a) it’s coming from the authoritative DMA b) they don’t want to be singled out and c) for the honorable exposure/advertising.

The DMA could get the movement going by surveying to find out how many companies are already recycling and plant the trees retroactively.

Press coverage on this could be substantial. And at that point, who could say that we're not doing enough...

Labels: DMA, green, recycling

Thursday, February 7, 2008

AHA and Jiffy Lube

The American Heart Association and Jiffy Lube have partnered for a new national awareness campaign. According to an article from PROMO magazine, half of Jiffy Lube customers are women which make the "red dress" idea appealing to both groups. Customers who make a $3.00 donation to AHA receive a coupon book for $100 worth of products from Jiffy Lube. One Jiffy Lube station in Des Moines IA is so behind the idea they even donned red dresses.

Labels: fundraising, nonprofit, partnership

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

I dream of Sales Genie

After the parade for the victorious underdog NY Giants, there will only be a few who remember vividly the entire game. Sure in sports bars all over NY and Boston, the die hard fans will re-play each exciting moment of the last 2 minutes. But for me, what I will remember are the commercials.

To me the Super Bowl is like the new fall season of TV; a harbinger of commercials to come. So I was a little disappointed by the line up this year. In particular, the Sales Genie campaign. Who's their target audience? Serious business people or Saturday morning cartoon watchers? Maybe I'm too close to it but I found them to be degrading. Also, the ads play into the hands of those who feel like there is no oversight in our industry. That thousands of names are just available for the taking, to anyone who wants them, without taking proper security measures and background checks.

I imagine that only time will tell how successful (or unsuccessful) the campaign is, but the potential damage to the DMA's efforts to protect privacy is already out there.

Labels: privacy, video

Monday, February 4, 2008

Web friends can be real friends

Darryl from Brandflakes wrote a really compelling post a few weeks ago about blogs, other social networks, and the new class of friendship they have unearthed. Admittedly, some of us here used to be sceptical of platforms like Twitter and Facebook that seemed to de-personalize relationships. Darryl pointed out that although you may never come face to face with these people, they've become part of your daily life and are, in a way, friends.

He told a story about a woman battling breast cancer, Susan, whose blog about her struggle was read by hundreds of people she never met. On the day of her surgery her web friends blogged about her and bore pictures of frozen peas in their avatars for support. (You can read the about the symbolism here.) The message became viral and more and more people started carrying peas.

This story got me thinking about how nonprofits could thrive from social networks, so I did some investigating. Apparently people are using applications that allow you to post badges or widgets on your blog, or Facebook pages, that can direct your friends/viewers to an area where they can donate to the cause you’re representing. Why not also use graphics in your avatar and link directly to the cause?

So maybe a key here to online/viral fundraising is simply to make yourself visible. Encourage the people of your success stories, or those that draw on your heartstrings, to share experiences online, start a blog, or simply start sporting a symbolic avatar. We'll be looking into ideas like these further and how they can grow online fundraising.

If you have a success story of using one of these applications, or how social networks have impacted your life and/or career -- leave a comment! We'd love to hear.

Labels: fundraising, social media