Direct Marketing Resource Center 

Direct Marketing Resources Result(s): 21 - 30 of 31

MAILCCI Direct marketing specialist CCI provides a plethora of interactive tools for direct marketers. Check out the ROI calculator to estimate profits from your direct mail campaign. An interactive letter shows you how Variable Data Printing (VDP) works. If you don't know, VDP is a form of digital printing that produces customized printed documents targeted to individual prospects simply by changing text and graphics within the master document. You'll also find zip code lookups and lots of other convenient tools and resources that may make your DM life just a little bit easier.

MailersClub With all the self-service resources available to direct marketers online, there's no reason to ever leave your desk again. At MailersClub, you can design and order everything from postcards and self-mailers to a mailing list of targeted prospects. Digital printing technology eliminates the need for minimum quantities and set-up charges, which is a real cost-savings that technology has brought to the DM marketplace. After your mail piece is approved (proof approval is offered both online and via mail), MailersClub will print, fold, stuff, seal, address, sort and deliver your mail within three days. Who's it going to? Rent a mailing list of prospects through partner infoUSA.com. If you provide your own list, MailersClub offers no-cost continuous list cleaning services as well. Not sure? Get a price quote before you start, or test out the service by uploading a previous mail piece to the site. They'll print it and mail it to you for your review within 48 hours.

Marketing Museum and Hall of Fame If you're interested in learning more about some of the truly great direct marketers both past and present, check out this site. It's clearly a labor of love, and we love the site author for putting it together! Vist "the great ones" and the "living legends" - biographies exist for DM'ers ranging from Clyde Bedell to Ken Varga. Don't know who they are? Get over to this site and find out.

National Do Not Call Registry Who ya gonna call? If you are a telemarketer, more than 50 million US consumers (at the time of this writing) don't want to hear from you - and they've made their feelings perfectly clear by registering online with the National Do Not Call Registry launched by the Federal Trade Commission on 6/27/03. Businesses began scrubbing their call lists against the registry in fall 2003. Of course, telemarketing savants (who are responsible for an estimated 104 million unsolicited phone calls per day) are exploring the exceptions to the rule. Telephone solicitations can still be made to existing customers of a business (defined as customers who have made a purchase over the last 18 months or an inquiry over the last 3 months); political organizations, charities and telephone surveyors are also exempt. Violators are subject to a fine of up to $11,000(US) per violation, and marketers are required to merge/purge their call lists at least once every three months.

ProLinkz Need tracking for your direct marketing efforts? Willmaster's ProLinkz CGI script is a link creator, tracker, disguiser, and manager in one. Especially useful for tracking the efficacy of links embedded in a SIG file or email, the CGI Perl script lets you create uniquely coded links that redirect to any URL, count the hits to the links, create link activity reports, and organize the links for tracking. Go through the demo to see the range of stats that you can gather. This is a licensed product, $45(US) per seat, for internal use. If you want a commercial license, you have to contact the company for the rate. Willmaster, the parent company, is a producer of CGI programs.

ShipShapes Is your direct mail program in ship shape? US postal mail regulations, which until 2003 forced marketers to use square or rectangular pieces, have loosened up. Now marketers can enter the direct mail fray with Custom Market-Mail (CMM), which are custom mail pieces that can be designed in any shape and size. ShipShapes petitioned for two years for the change, and they are one of the first companies to specialize in the design and mailing of this creative new marketing format. Their mail pieces are designed to your specifications on a pliable printed plastic, which arrives in target mailboxes in (you guessed it) ship shape. Your direct mail can be up to 3/4" thick and up to approximately the size of a large manila envelope. Response rates for CMM are expected to increase five-fold.

USPS NetPost Going postal? The USPS has put together an impressive array of products and services for direct marketers. If you're just getting up to speed, you'll find everything from online tutorials to a schedule of 5-hour direct mail seminars sponsored by the USPS that are coming to a location near you. Need help? USPS has lined up heavyweight DM partners for various services, all recommended via the site. Or you can manage your mailings yourself from your desktop. Two other programs offer even more DM options. First, a confirm service provides a special barcode called PLANET to electronically track delivery of First-Class Mail, Standard Mail and periodicals. You can also track when reply mail is on its way back to you. The PLANET barcode has made possible the first USPS-approved, First-Class product in 50 years - Friend-To-Friend prepaid postcards designed for pass-along. Simply send your postcard campaign with the special Friend-To-Friend mail classification and encourage your recipients to pass along their postcards. They drop them in the mailbox addressed to new friends, and your PLANET barcode is tracked so that you are charged for the lead.

VerticalResponse iBuilder Postcard Want to get the word out about a new product or service? Try postcard marketing. At VerticalResponse, you can create and send printed postcards via First-Class mail right from your desktop. An easy-to-use tool guides you through the process, from choosing artwork (you can also upload your own) to writing your message. Once complete, you view your print-ready masterpiece as a PDF so you know exactly what you're going to send. Give VerticalReponse your list, and your campaign is off to the mailbox. Note: You must create an iBuilder account, which includes email marketing tools, to access iBuilder Postcard (that's not entirely self-evident). Pricing varies depending on quantity - for 500-999 postcards you'll pay $.87(US) per card, including postage.

Who The folks at Inside Direct Mail have been dissecting upwards of 4,000 pieces of direct marketing creative every month for years. They critique and classify each marketing campaign and then house it in the renowned Who's Mailing What! archive, wherein you can find out what and when your competition is mailing and the creative and offers they are using. You can also study trends and techniques by category to get inspiration for your own campaigns. The database contains more than 150,000 mail pieces as well as hundreds of long-term controls. Access is yours for the price of a $165(US) annual subscription to Inside Direct Mail, which is a monthly dissection of direct marketing trends and techniques. You can also sign on for the no-cost monthly Who's Mailing What! Archive Insider email newsletter if you just want to keep up on the latest articles.

Who's Mailing What! Archive Insider The folks at Inside Direct Mail have been dissecting upwards of 4,000 pieces of direct marketing creative every month for years. They critique and classify each marketing campaign and then house it in the renowned Who's Mailing What! archive, wherein you can find out what and when your competition is mailing and the creative and offers they are using. You can also study trends and techniques by category to get inspiration for your own campaigns. The database contains more than 150,000 mail pieces as well as hundreds of long-term controls. Access is yours for the price of a $165(US) annual subscription to Inside Direct Mail, which is a monthly dissection of direct marketing trends and techniques. You can also sign on for the no-cost monthly Who's Mailing What! Archive Insider email newsletter if you just want to keep up on the latest articles.

1 2 3 4

Last Updated: Monday, March 29, 2004

Copyright Chase Online Marketing Strategies, Inc. 2004. All Rights Reserved.

Contact Information

Get the Latest Reviews of Top Marketing Sites by Email. Subscribe free to Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers Here We Value Your Privacy Privacy Policy

Current Issue

About Larry Chase