What do the USO, Smile Train, American Cancer Society and many other large (and small) non-profits have in common? It's not just that they provide life-changing services or that they are household names. Another important commonality is that they also all send direct...
Insights from Polaris Direct
Industry Trends
What Will You Do With the Gift of Lower Postage?
It took more than two years, but the day finally came. April 10 marked a momentous occasion when the 4.3% surcharge on postal rates was rolled back—if I listen closely, I can almost hear sighs of relief from direct mail marketers all over the country. Suddenly,...
Best Practices for Keeping Your Data Files Clean
As they say, “Spring has sprung and the grass is ‘ris…now start scrubbing.” Well, maybe the saying doesn’t end quite like that, but spring cleaning is one of those necessary evils we all have to tackle around this time of year. After we kick off the dust and haul out...
Dating and Direct Marketing: What They Have in Common
We’ve all heard them—disastrous relationship stories. From bad first dates to bad breakups, dating is a tenuous world, one that must be navigated carefully and skillfully. The same is true for direct marketing. One misstep with a prospect (perhaps you talked about...
In This Age of Marketing, Does Age Matter?
Question: What do a 20-year-old college student and a 34-year-old first-time mom have in common? Answer: Not a whole lot, other than the fact that they have been deemed Millennials. And because they’re both Millennials, you can market to them in exactly the same way,...
Paper: the fifth color
Variable Data Inkjet is all the rage these days—and it should be. After all, it offers marketers the long-awaited opportunity to achieve higher response rates through four-color, highly personalized one-to-one communications. But for Variable Data Printing (VDP) to be...