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Swiss Post International UK has announced a partnership with international mail management company, Direct Entry Services. Based in Heathrow, Direct Entry Services provides postal services for UK direct marketing agencies, working with some of the world’s most recognisable brands. It covers all industry sectors and has particular expertise in the ability to customise international mailings to local markets. The company will sell Swiss Post International products and services under the ‘Swiss Post’ brand and benefit from its marketing services and global network of subsidiaries, partners, resellers and customers. Swiss Post International UK has been increasing its sales networks as it ...

Our marketer on the ground, Simon Burrell, has spent many years working in and travelling across different regions of the world and now runs his own global travel website, ‘Our Man On The Ground’. In this, his regular DMI column, he offers a marketer’s eye view of… The classy business of flying across ‘The Pond’ Are you fed up with waiting to clear immigration when you arrive in the US? I was lucky a couple of years ago . . . landing one Saturday afternoon and managing to be in a cab just 20 minutes after stepping off the plane ...

Trish Dominy says it can take years to build up a good relationship with consumers, but just moments to destroy it – so nurture their confidence carefully. As a list supplier, I increasingly see the need that mailers have for greater selectability on data. Buying preferences, date of birth, family composition and household income are a few of the myriad selections requested regularly. Targeting specific segments of data is undoubtedly essential for mailers; it enables them to mirror the profiles of their best customers, test new segments of data and measure the responsiveness of each selection. All of this provides ...

DMI technology editor, Jamie Riddell, discusses use of Search keywords and says there’s gold in that long tail. Ahh! The long tail. A concept that became popular with search campaigns to identify profitable sales opportunities by focusing on lots of little keywords that would deliver more profitable sales together than a handful of large terms. For search, the belief and, indeed, the results showed, that taking many smaller keywords would collectively deliver profitable business as there was less competition for these terms and, as a resultant, the average cost per click was cheaper. Over time, the need to identify thousands ...

Columnist Ian Hughes rants about the latest issues affecting our industry. This time, his topic is: Facebook – friend, foe or flop? There are few people who do not know about the existence of Facebook – and people are either sweet or sour about it. But Facebook can also be a place to do business as well. At my company, we have tried to use Facebook to recruit mystery shoppers. What has been surprising is the way in which targeting is carried out. With search engine adwords, you target someone who types in a phrase such as ‘mystery shopper’. With ...

Herschell Gordon Lewis shares a little copy class. William of Ockham should have been a direct marketer. Maybe he was. Many of us moonlight openly or surreptitiously in a second pseudo-profession. And, in the 14th century, media choices were sparse enough to assure readership of anything that appeared in what then was considered ‘print’. We all have been exposed to the maxim known as Occam’s Razor or Ockham’s Razor : the simplest solution usually is the correct one. But if old Willie English logician, theologian and Franciscan friar was one of us, he overlooked the cornerstone of our house of ...

The winner of the top Direct Lotus award, handed out in Tokyo last week, was Mumbai-based Contract Advertising India, for its ‘Donkey Thrashes Tiger’ campaign for Sanctuary Asia magazine. The satirical, integrated campaign encouraged the youth of India to vote online at www.newnationalanimal.com for a rat, goat, monkey or donkey to replace the tiger as the country’s national symbol. It was part of a drive to show how tiger numbers are dwindling and to push the government to help tiger conservation. The initiative harnessed TV commercials and virals, print ads, posters, emails and sms, networking groups, radio and fun events ...

The UK’s Central Office of Information COI has published its annual expenditure figures for 2009/10, reflecting the combined spend of numerous government departments and public sector bodies that used its services during the year. A freeze has since been placed on government advertising and marketing spend by the new coalition Government. During this financial year, only essential new and existing campaigns will continue. The COI is currently scrutinising expenditure and looking for the most effective ways of allocating budget. Chief executive Mark Lund said the COI was playing its part in helping to reduce the national deficit: "This year we ...

American favourite, Martha Stewart Living magazine, is to be distributed across the UK, Australia and New Zealand from September, UK-based publishing house Pizzazz Media has announced. Pizzazz Media has entered into a licensing agreement with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia MSLO to produce and distribute the new edition of the magazine on a monthly basis, further expanding MSLO’s growing portfolio of international magazines. MSLO is also introducing editions of Everyday Food and Martha Stewart Weddings in Dubai this month and in October, respectively, with distribution in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. An Indonesian edition of Martha Stewart Living will ...

Protecting the UK’s e-shoppers from online scams is the focus of a long-term strategy launched for consultation by the Office of Fair Trading this week. The strategy outlines three action areas for protecting consumers while driving competition and economic growth in online markets. The Office of Fair Trading OFT suggests that it could, with other agencies, industry and consumers, work to: Promote business compliance by improving the effectiveness of guidance, facilitating industry-led solutions to new problems and sharing intelligence. Develop effective enforcement through working with businesses and other enforcers, developing further enforcement capacity and focusing on areas where enforcement has ...

A survey has revealed that email is the most preferred way for UK consumers to be informed of new products. The survey, conducted in London by smartFOCUS, found that 71 per cent of respondents selected email for new product offers, easily outpacing social media 21% , SMS 5% , direct mail 3% and telemarketing 0% . The study asked whether email had prompted individuals to buy and 69 per cent revealed it had. Types of products chosen via email campaigns were clothing or accessories 38% , personal electronics 31% and deals at restaurants, bars and coffee shops 27% . Tim ...

Richard Lloyd, one of the UK’s most experienced B2B data specialists, is to join Information Arts in the next fortnight as head of data. He will particularly drive the development and global sales of Information Arts’ database OMNI. Lloyd has more than two decades of experience, having achieved success at top names including Dunn and Bradstreet D&B , Experian and most recently taking charge of leading InfoUK’s rapid and effective entry into the UK B2B market. The new appointment will boost Information Arts’ reputation both in the UK and globally. Lloyd has contributed to books including Best Practice Guide to ...

Use of mobile phones for tickets for all kinds of travel and entertainment will be one of the main drivers of growth of m-commerce into the near future. So says a study by Juniper Research, which forecasts that mobile ticketing transactions will exceed $100 billion based on gross transaction value as soon as 2012: this is more than double the current market. But the report establishes that rapid adoption of mobile devices for commerce-related applications is by no means limited to ticketing. All segments – money transfers, banking, payments and coupons – are forecast to see significant growth rates. Report ...

Small and medium-sized business in the UK is looking up, according to results published today from The Chartered Institute of Marketing’s CIM Marketing Trends Survey 2010. The annual report, by Ipsos MORI, shows that SMEs in the UK are the most optimistic about business growth over the next year – more than half 54 per cen think their own business will improve, with just eight per cent predicting a decline in growth over the same period. This is in stark comparison with those businesses with a turnover of £100m or more, which are the most pessimistic: a fifth predict an ...

Weakening economic signals are having their effect on the employment outlook for digital and direct marketers in the third quarter Q3 , according to the latest employment report by direct and digital marketing recruitment firm, Bernhart Associates Executive Search. Bernhart has been conducting quarterly hiring surveys since 2001 and the latest findings reveal: 39 per cent of survey respondents said they will add to staff during the third quarter of 2010, down four points from Q2. 23 per cent of respondents currently have a hiring freeze, representing a slight increase from 20 per cent last quarter. The percentage of companies ...

The popularity of a celebrity, a business or a politician can sometimes be gauged by how many followers they have on micro-blogging site Twitter. But a new study by a social media marketing company claims that even some of the biggest names in the world may be faking their follower numbers, including the UK Prime Ministerial Twitter page. Australian-based company, usocial.net, says there is substantial evidence that many celebrities and organisations may have increased their follower numbers by artificial means. uSocial’s CEO, Leon Hill, said: "Using only publicly-available information and our own knowledge of how Twitter works, there’s no doubt ...

Doug Sacks brings clear insight into emerging markets which he says are now ripe for small and medium-sized businesses to explore. Recently, the iDi Marketers Forum was held in conjunction with the USA DMA’s Digital Marketing Days or ‘The Conference formerly known as DM Days New York’. As is the habit for the iDi, an excellent group of international speakers was assembled, offering practical information on a wide array of key topics. Plus, there was the all-important opportunity for networking, both during and after hours. My session dealt with the practicalities of entering the China market and how it can ...

Nick Martin puts the brakes on customer management ‘trucks’ in favour of sleeker, more specialised vehicles. Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently made a comparison between PCs and trucks, vehicles that once dominated the car market in the US, but which got killed by smaller cars as the US consumer got real. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Jobs said computers, including Apple’s own Macintosh, won’t go away, just as trucks didn’t disappear. But he suggested that sleeker portable products such as his company’s iPhone and iPad would be the equivalent of cars – offering touchscreen website browsing, droves ...

Keith Wiser takes a critical view of some South African customer loyalty schemes. Did I mention that in 2008 I was voted South Africa’s Direct Marketer of the Year? I must be honest, when I received the award I felt a bit like UK musician Phil Collins . . . ‘an overnight success after 30 years’. The following year I was inducted into the DMA Hall of Fame. This felt a bit more appropriate. After nearly 30 years in the business were they putting me out to grass? I mention both these awards to indicate that by now I ought ...

Back from the iDi conference in the US, Ian Hughes reports that even big brands are having to learn to stop shouting and start listening. At the recent iDi Marketers Forum in New York, I was lucky enough to hear a series of talks by a number of companies, that all pointed to the same issue. The first talk was by a lady from IBM, who was talking about how to do SEO and SEM on a global basis. The process was supposed to be relatively simple: make sure you achieve the highest page rank possible for each of your ...

. . . for direct marketers. DMI technology editor, Jamie Riddell, has some answers. Digital Marketing is now evolving at such a pace it is hard sometimes to identify what is a key long-term trend and what is a passing phase. With marketing budgets needed to deliver as much return as possible, one cannot trial every passing trend. ‘Social marketing’ has gained a lot of coverage over the past 18 months and, indeed, this column seems to talk about it every issue! From a writer’s perspective, I try to find the important trends that will affect the digital direct marketing ...

Susanne Hornikel says food supplements products offer potential for European marketers. In recent years, manufacturers of food supplements have had interesting opportunities for growth: an ageing population; increasing health awareness; rising incomes; and changing opinions about nourishment. A desire for comfort, a guilty conscience and a bid for higher physical efficiency and vitality are important reasons for the purchase of food supplements. Italy and Germany currently offer the largest markets for food supplements in the European Union – sales volumes are estimated at more than six billion euros. In the eastern EU member states, the demand is growing particularly fast, ...

. . . according to chapter 36,407, says Herschell Gordon Lewis. We assume we’re professional communicators. The very word ‘professional’ implies knowledge beyond that of someone who aspires from outside our little half-world to join us. So when an email shows up in our daily batch, and the email is headed, ‘22 Quick Tips for Better Email Marketing’, our replacement-assumption is that a source exists outside our own orbit. When another email ‘expert’ sends us this puzzler, headed ‘DKIM’, we may be impressed as well as nonplused by the very first sentence: “DomainKeys Identified Mail DKIM is an email authentication ...