Archive for March, 2006
Joining us once again this week is Alex MacAaron, Creative Director and “Queen B” of Plan B Communications, a past president of NEDMA (’03-’04) and our current Director of Communications.
Alex is also the co-author (along with Donna Baier Stein, another past president of NEDMA) of the book, The New Marketing Conversation, which is available for purchase here.
This time around, Alex tells you what you need to know about NEDMA ‘06’s Direct Mail track. So without further ado, here’s her preview…
I’m working on a major website right now with an interactive Creative Director/Programmer/Geek. He’s really really really smart about what he does – and completely ignorant when it comes to what we do. When I was talking about “Direct Marketing” the other day, he responded with …
“’Direct Marketing?’ Isn’t that a euphemism for ‘Junk Mail?’”
Well, my colleague’s smart aleck observation may be wrong, but he’s not alone in his thinking. As direct mail marketers, we probably rank in the public’s esteem somewhere between ambulance chasers and used car salesmen.
That’s why I encourage you to take a stand – and take your seat at NEDMA ‘06 and its Direct Mail track.
The first Direct Mail session promises to be entertaining as well as informative. In “Breakthrough Formats with Proven Success,” Mullen’s Sean Cunningham is going to share some packages that were such a departure that they “scared clients at first.” Wow. How often do we get to do that? (And live to talk about it?)
The next Direct Mail session gives you an opportunity to hear from not one, not two, not three, but four of New England’s top direct mail creatives. Jonathan Kranz, Bob McCarthy, Pat Farley and Pam Sullivan will share their expert perspectives on “Direct Mail Strategies: What’s Hot, What’s Not in B2B, B2C and Not-For-Profit.”
And, in the last Direct Mail session, we’ll hear about “The Value of Outsourcing Production” from Yellowfin Direct Marketing’s President & CEO, David Hazeltine. He’ll point out some of the pitfalls of trying to do too much in-house.
Hey, I admit it. Junk mail has been very good to me. So, if you’re like me and make a living in direct mail marketing, I hope I’ll see you at NEDMA ’06, It’s a Brave New World, the New England Direct Marketing Association’s Conference and Exposition (June 14-15, 2006, LaCava Center, Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts).
Thanks, Alex. Great post! And as I mentioned last week, Alex is also making an appearance at NEDMA ’06, conducting an all-day (9 AM-4 PM) creative workshop on June 14 with her Plan B colleagues, Walter Bumford and Dave Gordon. Entitled The Big Pitch, this workshop will give you the opportunity to join a team for a day and get a “real world” assignment from a major Boston-area client. At the end of the session, your team will “pitch” its ideas to a panel of expert judges. And if you’re on the winning team, according to Alex, you’ll get plenty of fame, fortune and…a paid freelance assignment from Plan B Marketing Communications. How cool is that?
March 30th, 2006
Logging in this week as our special guest blogger is Alex MacAaron, Creative Director and self-proclaimed “Queen B” of Plan B Communications, a direct marketing creative agency located near Boston.
Of course, Alex is a past president of NEDMA (’03-’04) and our current Director of Communications. She also happens to be making an appearance at NEDMA ’06, conducting an all-day (9 AM-4 PM) creative workshop on June 14 with her Plan B colleagues, Walter Bumford and Dave Gordon.
Alex is the recipient of dozens of advertising industry awards, including numerous regional awards as well as national/international honors such as three DMA Gold ECHO Awards; the BPME Gold Award for Broadcast Promotion; and the “Best of Show” Silver Microphone award for a jingle package. She has taught at several local universities and frequently lectures for various regional and national associations.
She is also the co-author (along with Donna Baier Stein, another past president of NEDMA) of the book, The New Marketing Conversation, which is available for purchase here.
You’re on, Alex…
I was asked to contribute to the NEDMA Conference blog, and I confess I’ve procrastinated.
You see, I’m just not feeling my usual level of confidence.
Okay, I admit it. I’m suffering from “Conference Envy.”
You know, that sinking feeling when you realize that someone else’s conference is … well .. a bit better endowed. My sense of inadequacy isn’t from lack of experience. After all, I Chaired two highly successful NEDMA Conferences myself, 1998 and 2003. And, I welcomed Conference attendees as NEDMA’s President in 2004.
But this year is different. Bigger. Better.
For example, I’ll start with the New Technology track. I go to a lot of conferences (NEDMA, of course, but a slew of others too). And I’ve sat through a lot of ho-hum sessions on New Media before. After all, “New Media” has been a marketing industry buzzword for nearly 20 years now. (So, hey, how “new” can it really be?)
That’s why I liked the title of Thom Kennon’s New Technology session right away. “Discover Really New Media – And What to do With It.” Thom founded one of the first interactive agencies and has worked with the American Red Cross, Toyota, Dell and D & B. He should be able to tell us “What’s New” – and I mean, “What’s Really New.”
The next session in the New Technology track will be led by author and consultant David Meerman Scott. He’ll share with us his practical – and it sounds like invaluable – knowledge about “How to Turn Online Visitors into Buyers.” His examples range from The Wall Street Journal and UPS … to Aerosmith. Rock on!
And, finally, the last session of the New Technology track will be an in-depth case study that also – my apologies to Steven Tyler and the boys – rocks. ExactTarget’s Joel Book will walk us through “How Liberty Mutual Uses Email to Build Profitable Relationships.”
So, I hope I’ll see you at NEDMA ‘06. That’s it for now. I have to leave for my Conference Envy support group.
March 22nd, 2006
We’re fortunate once again to be able to welcome to this space Bob McCarthy as our special guest blogger. As many of you know, Bob was president of the New England Direct Marketing Association (NEDMA) in 1992-1993, and is a partner with his wife, Sheryl, at McCarthy & King Marketing, Inc., a small, Milford, MA-based marketing communications firm specializing in direct mail and direct response advertising.
This week, Bob writes about Anne Holland, President and Publisher of Marketing Sherpa, Inc., the Featured Keynote Speaker and star attraction of NEDMA ‘06. Here’s Bob…
I am the first to admit that when it comes to web and email marketing, I’ve never been ahead of the curve.
As long-time direct mail guy, I always thought I was doing pretty well just keeping that curve in sight.
I’ve never doubted the power of on-line marketing. It’s been pretty clear from the start (whenever that was) that this medium (if you want to call it that) was going to change marketing forever. You’d have to be a fool to ignore it.
But getting out in front of the technology – well, that’s another matter entirely.
That’s why you have to admire Anne Holland, who will be the Featured Keynote Speaker at NEDMA ‘06, It’s a Brave New World, the New England Direct Marketing Association’s Annual Conference and Exposition, June 14-15 at Bentley College.
Anne Holland is president and publisher of MarketingSherpa, and a true pioneer in internet marketing.
For those of you who don’t know, MarketingSherpa is a New England-based market research firm that publishes benchmark guides, buyer’s guides, how-to reports and (my favorites) case studies on the use of internet marketing.
Some 173,000 advertising, marketing and PR professionals read MarketingSherpa’s publications every week. The publications accept no advertising so you can be sure the research you get is unbiased.
If you’re not already a subscriber, I recommend it. Their newsletters are free and packed with all kinds of practical, real-life information. But be warned: their newsletters are addictive. To learn more, go to www.MarketingSherpa.com.
Now back to Anne Holland …
What makes Anne such a great speaker for the NEDMA conference is that she herself started off in direct mail subscription selling.
Before joining MarketingSherpa as a start-up, she was Head of Marketing for Phillips Business Media, a $100 million publishing company that once used direct mail almost exclusively to market its many publications.
But in 1995, Anne helped launch one of the world’s first profitable subscription websites for two of Phillips publications, Interactive Marketing News and MIN New Media.
And our world of direct marketing has been changing ever since then.
Anne’s presentation title is a long one – “Web DM 2.0: New Internet Direct Response Tactics – What’s Proven and What’s Still Just Hype?” – but I think it’s exactly we all want and need to hear as we enter this “second generation of web marketing.”
“Just when you thought you had the internet under control,” she tells us, “new marketing tactics started exploding again.”
“There’s Tier B search marketing, podcasting, RSS, desktop applications, triggered email campaigns, the ‘new’ flash intro, multivariate (taguchi) testing and more.”
Attend Anne’s keynote, and you’ll learn what’s really working, what’s just hype and what you really need to stay away from. You can also expect some research-based advice for email and search marketers who are looking for quick tips to bring their results up a notch.
If you haven’t heard Anne Holland speak before, come prepared. This internet pioneer is well known as a dynamic speaker who will grab your attention and give you more information than you can handle. Get ready to take notes.
Thanks, Bob. Your contributions to this blog are appreciated. If anyone else out there wants to be a guest blogger, too, please don’t hesitate to speak up. We are seeking news and information from anyone who has anything to do with the conference — speakers, sponsors, exhibitors, etc. So if you have something to say about NEDMA ‘06, It’s a Brave New World, this is your opportunity. This is your blog.
March 16th, 2006
Congratulations to David Hazeltine, President and Chief Executive Officer of Yellowfin Direct Marketing, for winning a $10 Starbucks Card just for subscribing to the NEDMA ’06 Conference Blog and letting us know that he did so before the deadline (see last week’s post — below — for details).
We had planned to give away two Starbucks Cards, but David was — surprisingly — the only one to both subscribe and get back to us on time. So kudos to him for taking advantage of such a good opportunity!
Of course, we would still like to encourage you — and everyone else interested in NEDMA – to become a subscriber. To do so, just read what was written in this space last week, then click on one of the two links near the top of the sidebar to the right, either the one that says, “Receive email updates through FeedBlitz” or the other one, “Track updates through Bloglines.” Email or RSS, the choice is yours….
March 10th, 2006
In lieu of writing something about one of our speakers, sponsors or exhibitors, I thought I would take the time this week to encourage you to not just read, but subscribe to the NEDMA ’06, It’s a Brave New World Conference Blog. As a subscriber, you’ll know whenever the blog has been updated with new information without ever having to actually go to it. It’ll come to you.
You Can Subscribe by Email…
There are two ways to subscribe. If you would like to be notified by email, all you need to do is click on the link near the top of the sidebar to the right that says, “Receive email updates through FeedBlitz.” You’ll be taken to the FeedBlitz site, where you’ll be asked for your email address. Subscribe this way to the NEDMA ’06 Conference Blog and every time we post something new, you’ll get an email from FeedBlitz containing a portion of the new content – you’ll have to click through to the blog itself to read the post in its entirety.
…Or You Can Subscribe by RSS
Then there’s RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. This is a way for you to subscribe to this blog – and as many others as you like – through an instantaneous feed brought to you by a feed reader (or aggregator) such as Bloglines.
At first, RSS may sound confusing, but it’s really not. And many online marketing experts say it’s the wave of the future, so it makes a lot of sense to at least become familiar with it.
RSS means both the sender and receiver don’t have to worry about the filters that can inadvertently block legitimate emails from reaching their destination.
RSS makes it possible for you to receive all – and only – the content you want, when you want it, where you want it.
Bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change, Seth Godin, explains RSS in his own inimitable way on his blog, which you’ll find by clicking here.
Or to learn even more about RSS, you might want to click here and read Backbone Media’s Corporate Blogging Survey, which contains an excellent definition of the term in addition to everything else you would want to know about this revolutionary, self-publishing platform called a blog.
All that said, the aforementioned Bloglines is the feed reader I’d like to recommend (although there are many other good ones, of course). To subscribe to this blog using Bloglines, just click on the link near the top of the sidebar to the right that says, “Track updates through Bloglines.” This will take to you the Bloglines site, where you’ll first register for a free account, then subscribe to the feed for the NEDMA ’06, It’s a Brave New World Conference Blog, among as many other blogs as you’d like to monitor. It’s that easy.
Your Chance to Win a $10 Starbucks Card
As an incentive for you to become a subscriber to this blog sooner rather than later, we’re going to give away two $10 Starbucks Cards – one to a reader who subscribes through FeedBlitz and the other to someone who subscribes through Bloglines between the time of this post and 5 PM EST on Monday, March 6.
To qualify for this drawing, however, you must let us know before the deadline that you’ve subscribed for the first time by sending an email to that includes the day and time you became a subscriber and whether you used FeedBlitz or Bloglines as well as your name, company name, mailing address and phone number. We’ll announce the two winners here next week. Good luck! And thanks for reading – or better yet, subscribing to – the NEDMA ’06, It’s a Brave New World Conference Blog.
March 3rd, 2006
