It must have been a more polite age. In 1923, Beacon Adjustment Co. (“Collections Everywhere”) offered a series of posterettes, poster-style stickers, for use in collecting on invoices.
One pictured a man with binoculars. The copy? “Have been looking for your payment quite a while.”
The posterettes, ten in all, were written by the “nationally famous” direct mail copywriter Louis Victor Eytinge. They came in three colors, and were bound in booklet form. continue reading…
Call it what you want: Branded content, custom content or simply content. It’s no longer a tiny line item in the budget.
The Custom Content Council reported recently that U.S. firms spent $47.2 billion on content in 2009. On average, companies are allocating 32% of their marketing budgets on it, an all-time high.
The most popular content formats are print, Web site updates of articles, blog posts and e-newsletters. The least common are mobile and interactive PDFs. But mobile is getting hotter—it’s the “medium that most marketers believe they are likely to add or invest in next year,” the Council reports.
At the same time, the number of custom print titles declined, but page counts and circulation increased. continue reading…
Many companies have barely gotten used to the Web. Now there’s a whole new way of delivering content and advertising.
The iPad.
Yes, the device introduced by Apple in April is about to transform marketing and publishing.
Or, so said speakers at a recent Media Vitals Webinar.
And magazines are jumping into it.
Take Bonnier, publisher of Popular Science and many other titles. Pop Science offered a digital issue on iPad on April 3, after an all-out developmental push, and was rewarded with a plug from Steve Jobs; he called it “the king of the hill.”
“We’ve now been up for three consecutive months,” said Greg Hano, vice president of publishing for Bonnier. “Our goal is to find new audiences, reset the pay model and grow our business.”
Publishers know they “have not done a great job with the Web,” he added. “We’re not going to make the same mistake twice.” continue reading…
Oh, no, not another LinkedIn flap. A direct marketing group member is upset because she got this message from a Webinar sponsor:
“It is our practice not to approve registrants who register using a personal email account. If you would like to re-register using a corporate email account, we will be happy to approve your registration.”
This drew several heated comments. One person referred to the refusal of personal addresses as a “bone-headed practice,” and another observed that home office workers are being excluded out of hand. But others disagreed.
“I am sure the host wants to be aware of any competitors registering,” wrote a defender of this practice. “In addition, if a registrant is unwilling to give their corporate e-mail then the likelihood of that registrant being a qualified attendee is low.” continue reading…
Want to keep your youngster busy while creating some nice gifts? Do what craft writer Beth Engleman suggests, and turn your old catalogs into necklaces.
This idea appeared around Earth Day, and we initially thought that it was part of some anti-junk-mail scheme. But it has a certain charm, and it’s cost-effective (the only cash outlay is for the beads and the glue). So we happily share these directions: continue reading…
© 2010 Multichannel Marketing for B2B Marketers