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No one wants to be “that guy” . . . the one with the annoying habit that everyone notices except him. Brands risk that when they don’t pay attention to how people are consuming their marketing messages.

But you’re not “that guy.” Right?

If you create unique email interfaces for the most popular devices and email clients, that’s certainly a start....

I enjoyed Chris Anderson’s keynote address at the DMA.  I liked that he was able to boil down a wonky subject like “Big Data” in to something relatable. 

In fact, that was one of his main points. 

With the proliferation of information, marketers will have to get more comfortable with probability instead of certainty.  The numbers...

Whenever I read a book, I find myself relating its contents to my life, and specifically, to my life at the agency.  I seldom actually “get lost” in a book and simply enjoy it.  Rather, I am incessantly underlining, highlighting, and dog-earing pages that contain relevant passages, inspiring quotes, or just good advice.  I use books as management tools.  In a previous...

Some may say that “incorrigible, loathsome, and pragmatic” accurately describe me.  This phrase is actually the ending sentence from this article about oil companies by Larry Dobrow.  I agree.  Brands, not just oil companies, sometimes strive too hard...

I previously wrote a blog post in which I was skeptical of Facebook’s ability to acquire new customers.  Rather, I thought Facebook was a pure retention and loyalty play.

Based on last night’s DMA 2011 Keynote, Facebook is fine tuning its pitch to demonstrate...

The highlight for me so far at the DMA 2011 conference was the interactive breakout panel after the keynote address this morning.

Gary Vaynerchuk from Vayner Media said, “Managing acquisition has been fine-tuned to a science.  Brands are struggling with retention."

I don’t want to sound too self-serving here, but this statement reminded me of where Hacker Group was...

Another book I recently finished is Winning Ugly: Mental Warfare in Tennis – Lessons from a Master.

I am terrible at tennis and don’t really play much. But, this is the best business strategy book I have read. Seriously....

I just finished reading Luke Sullivan’s Hey Whipple Squeeze This: A guide to creating great advertising 

I was drawn to the book for several reasons: 

• First, the title is great. I know I shouldn’t judge...

I recently posted about the importance of correctly developing your target audience to get the most out of your campaign.

Here’s an example of what I mean by that.

A client of ours was particularly interested in developing a marketing campaign...

When I tell people I work for a marketing agency, it sounds pretty cool. People get that Mad Men image in their mind’s eye. Yes, I work with some very creative individuals. And I confess I enjoy seeing the great work our creative team does for our clients.

But what I’ve learned again and again over the years is that targeting your audience is what really gets spectacular...

I discussed reasons why Facebook is not necessarily the right response channel for direct marketers looking for new customers in an earlier post.

But to entirely dismiss Facebook’s power to influence opinion and behavior would be naive. I believe the following implementations of Facebook...

Recently, a client asked our opinion about trying to send prospects to a branded Facebook page as one of our calls to action. My response was, “With the right incentive, I’m confident we could use offline marketing to drive traffic to Facebook. However, I question whether this effort would translate to incremental sales.”

Here are a few reasons why I answered the way I did...

I wanted to share this article from MobileMarketer on "Six mistakes to avoid in mobile advertising this holiday season."

This list could be considered a good reminder, but only #6 is really specific to mobile.  Although mobile is new its fundamentals should not stray from good direct marketing basics and...

We recently had presentations from two very significant media organizations. I’m pretty sure that just about everyone in America has heard of both these companies.

It surprised me that, in both of these presentations, they were not able to answer questions about ROI of their solutions because A.) they were so new  B.) they don’t  track through to sale and C.) at the...