Microsoft Corp.

Is process friction impacting returns on your holiday marketing campaigns? Six simple steps can help address it quickly while working with your existing programs.

if you're not tweeting, blogging or streaming, don't feel stupid. You probably just have bottom-line accountability and don't want to waste money. Come to think of it, you're actually sounding pretty smart.
 But, you're probably receiving pressure to jump on the social media bandwagon. It's just that you're justifiably concerned that it may not yield measureable benefits. Like all direct marketing, approaching social media efforts from a strategic perspective will improve 
your chances.

Microsoft is planning to open "dozens" of retail stores, beyond the four that currently exist, the company's COO said recently.

Do you know which keywords are driving phone calls to your business? Are the pay-per-click (PPC) keywords “red shoes” making the phone ring? Or perhaps calls are coming from searches initiated with “black pumps” or “wedge sandals”? Whether you’re spending $600 a month on PPC or six figures, it’s imperative to know how your online marketing efforts affect your offline sales conversions.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Board of Directors today announced the election of G. Steven Dapper, chairman and founder of hawkeye, as chairman of the board. Don McKenzie, CEO of Direct Group, was elected vice chairman of the board.  The terms of office commenced at DMA’s board meeting today in Washington, D.C.

A 2009 year-end survey of store traffic conducted by ShopperTrak, a provider of shopper traffic counting technology, showed a reasonably encouraging year-over-year increase of 3.5 percent. But store traffic has been so light over the past couple years that retailers, and their software vendors, are seeking ways to not only get consumers into stores, but also take them by the hand and guide them right to the cashiers. Case in point, take two recent retail technological innovations from Escalate Retail and NCR.

Pop-up Stores Attract New Shoppers for Target; Staples' Goal-Setting Program Brings Retailer Prospects; Untapped Networks.

Brands aren't trying to influence a person; they're trying to influence the mind. They take the time to study how the mind functions, makes decisions and how it can be most predictably influenced. Brands aren't trying to meet people's needs. Rather, they're trying to meet their wants. You must understand consumers’ wants in order to influence them to your way of thinking.

From the PRINT 09 conference, Zmags, which helps marketers engage customers through Interactive Collateral Management (ICM), announced that it has launched two new advisory boards intended to help the company gauge customer needs and maintain its edge in the digital collateral creation space. Zmags hosted the first formal meetings of its Advisory and Thought Leadership Boards in Boston earlier in September.

Performics today released aggregate data from its clients’ ‘same store’ online retail search marketing campaigns, illustrating important findings for advertisers, including an increase in first half ROI and a jump in July search spend. Signs point toward a possible shift among advertisers to increase search investment through the balance of 2009 and the holiday season.