Lenser

New marketing vehicles such as the iPad bring cross-channel retailers innovative ways to reach consumers. But they also complicate life, making it a challenge to get a clear picture of which marketing activities are driving the most traffic to a website.

Regardless of the channels in which you sell, testing is invaluable to your business. And offer testing, in particular, is misunderstood in both practice and power. Yet testing seems complicated and time consuming. Is it worth it? The answer: You can't afford NOT to test.

I recently came upon an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal about how we, as consumers, feel about customer service. And frankly, the score isn't good for most companies selling products and services.

All catalogers want to capitalize on the recovering economy, but they're most likely still constrained by pretty tight budgets. To help catalogers learn how to prioritize their needs and tailor their printed catalogs to maximize revenue, All About ROI presented a Feb. 16 webinar called "Ways to Get More Bang for Your Paper Buck: How Combining Your Priorities and Paper Innovations Can Save You Money in 2010."

Most multichannel sellers have a small group of extremely loyal customers who buy year in, year out, or come back annually making substantial purchases. These are your biggest fans, and you'd be surprised to realize how much more they spend than your other customers, and thus how important they are to you.

In both consumer and B-to-B direct marketing, one of the most misunderstood processes is creating effective lead generation efforts — whether they take place on the web, in email or by mail.

As the economy creeps back and holiday season is upon us, the $64,000 question is whether consumers will start buying again. Lee Eisenberg — best-selling author, former Lands' End executive and former Esquire editor — certainly thinks so. His new book, "Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What," released in October, explores Americans' love affair with shopping. All About ROI asked Eisenberg his thoughts behind the book and his outlook for all forms of retail.

For most multichannel retailers, developing marketing plans and budgets for 2010 is a daunting task. After two years of tough economic climates that meant sales reductions and downsizing for many, now’s the time to build a plan for another — perhaps better, yet uncertain — year.

Everyone in business has to sell. In the long run, it's what keeps you alive and growing. Yet there are times I hear clients say they're willing to give up sales to support the brand. Are you kidding? Never! That's evidence of grave dysfunction between creative and marketing.

If you’d asked last year what I thought the strongest word in catalog and direct selling was, without hesitation I would have said, “FREE.” “Free” always tests strong. Even in e-mail subject line scenarios where you’d expect spam filters to knock them out, response is so strong that it more than makes up for the ones filtered out. But this year it appears that “YOU” has become more important. And while most catalogs and Web sites seem to pretend this word doesn’t even exist, they’re missing out on a personal powerhouse word that trumps all others when used properly. I reached this conclusion