The ABC’s of Finding Value Leakages in Direct Response
February 22, 2013 — In many businesses, managers are looking for the big differentiator to build their brand and revenue – looking for the ideal quick fix, easy solution, magic bullet or category killer! But if you are a direct response merchant, or a mainstream brand using direct response, the secret to success and achieving your objectives lies not in a magic bullet – ... (more)
Trending in 2013: Considering your method of web attribution
December 17, 2012 — During a campaign, marketers and clients alike are driven to associate every conversion and its resulting revenue with an action. For instance, was a product’s spike in online orders last night the result of steady TV advertising or the result of a recent direct mailing? Specifically, marketers want to quantify how much online activity was generated by various offline advertising ... (more)
Weighing the Pros and Cons of D2C Business Models
November 21, 2012 — Whether you are a veteran D2C marketer or a newcomer to the industry, choosing your business model is the first decision you make that will lay out the path of your go-to-market strategy. At the ground level of business planning, you can choose one of three options that will determine the distribution of responsibility and profit over the life cycle ... (more)
Change Is Good
May 3, 2012 — Telemarketing script not getting the results you want? Here are some things to consider before you change it! First ask yourself, how often do you make significant changes to your sales scripts? If it is too frequently (more than once per month) then your sales agents may not have a chance to get comfortable with the script before a new ... (more)
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
May 3, 2012 — In the Direct Response industry, your call center agents are like athletes in a football game. The sales agents are your front-line, assertive minds that dig their heels in and “go for it.” They typically have more of that “competitive edge” and are motivated by money or just numbers in general. They are the ones with the loud voice that ... (more)
Managing By Metrics: Intro
May 3, 2012 — I’ve probably had ten people in the last week ask me “what does the KPI (in your name) stand for?” No, it’s not our initials, nor does it stand for Knowledge, Power, Income (not sure how they came up with that one). It actually stands for Key Performance Indicator (well, there are a few others like Kuwait Petroleum International). Wikipedia ... (more)
Call Center Metrics
May 3, 2012 — Let’s face it. It’s not rocket science, and I’m not spilling any secrets when I say that in the direct response industry the only way to effectively gauge and control performance in a call center is to manage by a defined set of metrics, or better yet by KPI (key performance indicators… and pun intended as well!). One of the ... (more)
Managing by Metrics: Benchmarking
March 3, 2012 — We’ve all heard the scoop on our competition from some other industry source. Supposedly their campaign is generating millions in sales, has a 3.0+ MER, 40% web conversion, has an average of 5 turns of continuity…AND only a 2% return rate. You start to beat yourself up over the harsh reality that you are nowhere near any of these numbers, and it can ... (more)
Managing by Metrics: Web Metrics
February 15, 2012 — Online and mobile sales continue to grow exponentially, due in large part because the web has taken accountable, direct-to-consumer advertising to a new level. While we previously used TV, radio, and print advertising to target general demographics (say 25-45 year old females) we are now able to use the web to target extremely specific demographics (someone doing a key word search ... (more)
The 5 fulfillment questions you should be asking yourself
February 3, 2012 — So, you’ve made the phone ring, your call center has done a bang up job closing your calls and you’ve been able to decrease your cancel/decline rate – you’re golden, right, sales complete? Wrong – you’ve made the phone ring and processed the sales but how efficiently is your product getting to your customer? This is a metric many people ... (more)