Direct mail may still hold a slender lead as the most dominant form of Direct Marketing, but things are definitely changing. Recent technological developments are giving marketers more and more opportunities to get their message directly to their audience. In years to come both mobile marketing and social networking may be the most effective forms of Direct Marketing, but right now the biggest rival to the DM pack is undoubtedly email marketing.

The practice of contacting customers and prospects through email has really taken off in recent years. In fact, The Direct Marketing Association estimated that US firms alone spent over $400 million on email marketing in 2006 – and the technique has only grown in popularity since. The reason for this is simple… email marketing has a number of benefits over traditional DM and door drops. Read more…

How much of your day do you feel like you are constantly doing things but not achieving anything? We can all think of examples of where we seem to be wasting our time – sitting in road works on the way to work, filling in a report that no-one reads – but after attending a course on Applying Lean Methodologies from Process Management International (PMI) I learnt several tools on how to examine and change your processes to improve them. Whether it be putting work through the Creative Department or simply cooking dinner!

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If you have ever commented on a blog post, web news article or Facebook group, you will probably have come into contact with trolls. They are the thoroughly irksome, pedantic and occasionally downright unsavoury individuals who post irrelevant, inflammatory and/or abusive remarks in message boards, often with the sole intent of disrupting on-topic conversation or undermining other forum users.

For the most part, trolls are accepted as just one of those irritations that happen online – like receiving those persistent emails about enlarging your penis, or unwittingly helping to prolong Rick Astley’s career – but for us marketing types trolls are more than just an annoyance. The truth is that these cyber-tosspots cost advertising agencies in the UK alone millions of pounds every year. Read more…

Success in marketing, and certainly direct marketing, depends on one factor above all others… reaching the right people with a timely and relevant message. And that’s why data, and certainly quality data, is valued so highly.

Ever since the introduction of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), where a company has tools to track and organise its contacts with its current and prospective customers, there has been talk of allowing the consumer to manage the data that companies hold about them.

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Red C’s Mystery Tipper campaign for Swinton’s Taxi Division has been selected as one of the finalists for the overall Diamond Award, at this year’s IDM Business Performance Awards.

The IDM Diamond Award is the most coveted prize in direct marketing. It celebrates the long-term contribution direct marketing can make to the success of a business. So it’s fair to say we’re pretty chuffed to be nominated. Read more…

You may have heard on the news reports or read in the newspapers that apparently we’re in the worst recession to hit these shores for 30 years.  How very depressing.  So how do we respond to a situation like this?  Should we take shelter under the boardroom table and hide from this economically fragile world or should we down tools and hope to the heavens that we aren’t gobbled up by the doom and gloom that is the global credit crunch?  No, of course not.  We react.  We plan.  We implement.  After all, in every situation there are losers and there are winners.  Even in the darkest, deepest depression for 30 years. Read more…

Red C celebrated 15 years of excellence last night with a big birthday bash at Dukes 92 in Manchester. All our clients and staff, each sporting a t-shirt with a word or two that described their character (such as ‘newly-wed’, ‘masseuse’ or ‘arm wrestler’), were there to celebrate the momentous occasion, which began with a champagne reception and was shortly followed by a tasty Thai curry buffet.

The drinks didn’t stop flowing all night and the guests were entertained with live music supplied by our very own band C’Red – with Adrian on drums, son Matthew on bass, Rosemary on vocals and husband Lindsay on guitar, plus some special appearances from other Red C staff. There was also music from rock ’n’ roll combo The Rhythm Aces, and some sleight of hand from our resident magician. Read more…