Art Bell

By Denny Hatch I am a late-night talk-radio junkie. I have this little pillow speaker, and when I wake up during the night, I turn on the radio and hope the talk will lull me back to sleep. From midnight until 2 a.m. Rollye James, a woman with a brilliant intellect and an encyclopedic knowledge of rock-n-roll music, is on the radio. Then from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. is Coast-to-Coast AM with George Norry who replaced Art Bell, one of the great Renaissance minds of the 20th/21st centuries. What these talk wizards have in common is a sponsor called C. Crane

You have a slew of choices when trying to reach prospects without paying postage, including direct response space advertising, broadcast and other channels. By Denny Hatch It is imperative to determine the lifetime value of customers by source. Robert Hackett, RRD Direct’s vice president of sales, provides the following formula: Lifetime value is a function of frequency of purchase, multiplied by the gross margin, multiplied by the duration of brand loyalty. What can you afford to pay for a new customer? To make that determination, Gary Hennerberg of the Hennerberg Group suggests you take the following steps: --Research customer lifetime value.

You have a slew of choices when trying to reach prospects without paying postage, including direct response space advertising, broadcast and other channels. By Denny Hatch It is imperative to determine the lifetime value of customers by source. Robert Hackett, RRD Direct's vice president of sales, provides the following formula: Lifetime value is a function of frequency of purchase, multiplied by the gross margin, multiplied by the duration of brand loyalty. What can you afford to pay for a new customer? To make that determination, Gary Hennerberg of the Hennerberg Group suggests you take the following steps: --Research customer lifetime value. --Calculate

By Denny Hatch Periodically I get phone calls from fledgling entrepreneurs who have great products and want to get into direct mail. "What else have you got?" is always my first question. "Wha ... what do you mean?" "What other products?" "This is my only product." I say, "In the words of consultant Susan McIntyre: 'The key to long-term profitability is to build a large house list of repeat buyers.' That's true for any direct marketing business—catalog or otherwise." "But don't you want to hear about my product?" "What does it sell for?" "Uh, $20, maybe." "Test it in space," I tell