Joanne Clayton

This week, I have received two pieces of direct marketing mail that have, if nothing else, inspired this blog. Most of you know how passionate I am about this industry. I love nothing more than to give direct marketing tips to my readers and this week, I have what I consider to be probably the […]

Is it me or has there been an increase in the use of negative marketing recently? Negative marketing is simply marketing yourself by making your competition look bad or inferior. It’s an interesting way of promoting yourself, for sure, and carries a not insignificant element of risk with it. Whilst the depth of the derision

I remember a long time ago, being told a story of someone who went into a famous German car showroom, only to be frowned upon and not taken seriously by the sales person because of how he was dressed. As it happens, he was a multi-millionaire looking to purchase a new top-spec top of the

We’ve recently adopted a new CRM (Customer Record Management) system, replacing the previous one which had proven to be unreliable. We’ve used a CRM system for some time as a database marketing tool, as from it we conduct email broadcasting, telemarketing and other ways of direct marketing to our contacts. Predominantly though, it’s a means

I read an article in a magazine recently – it was a sports magazine and the article was regarding how to get over the motivational dips that we all get from time to time. Whilst some of the tips were aimed directly at the issues faced by athletes, such as cold weather outside, dark early

I often wonder how many opportunities I lose by not knowing that something is happening. I also wonder how to prevent missing such opportunities – is it possible to find out in advance of an upcoming event, for example? Let me explain…… Last week was National Apprenticeship week. Luckily, we found out about it, although

A couple of weeks ago, we changed our company’s telephone supplier. The catalyst for changing was simply a cold call I received (proof in itself that a) telemarketing companies still works and b) we practice what we preach), during which the salesperson promised cheaper bills, based upon our consumption. We weren’t looking for a new

Last year, I said to my husband Steve that I was going to ride one or two Sportives – timed cycle rides / races of varying distances, often around 50-100 miles. Last year came ….. and went ….. without my having ridden one! You may recall that we both rode the Pedal For Pounds charity