Links of the Week!

Here's this weeks collection of our favorite posts of the week!

1) Bhupendra Khanal's Business Analytics Blog: Bhupendra's post "Management Consulting May Not Be the Right Answer," is a thought-provoking post on why business ventures most often fail. Bhupendra discusses how you must integrate smart analytics, market research and management consulting to make successful strategic business decisions. He also makes the point that customers need to be treated as humans, and unless you utilize all three of these areas in your business venture, the emotional piece (that appeals to human beings) is lost.


2) Bob Sullivan's Sales and Marketing Effectiveness Blog: Bob's post "B2B Marketers Plan 2008 Budget Increases," gives us some excellent news to end our week -- particularly after the DM employment outlook news that we reported on yesterday! Bob reports on a recent survey that found that B2B marketers are going to be increasing their budgets in 2008 -- and mostly in the areas of online, events and . . . drumroll please . . . direct marketing! We think that DM'ers are going to need to strategically plan to really get the most out of their B2B marketing budgets, and put in place solid measurement systems to prove each campaign's success. In this sluggish economy, this will help us to create a better economic outlook for direct marketing professionals as we continue to prove that our efforts pay off -- in terms of increased ROI to the businesses we support.

3) Ted Grigg's Reflections About Direct Marketing Blog: Ted's post "Four Secrets for your Acquisition List Testing Success," provides great insight about renting lists to fuel your acquisition campaigns. Ted gives us some pointers on working with list managers and brokers and then creating sound list testing strategies. He also highlights the importance of selecting a knowledgeable list broker and how these professionals can help you plan successful list tests -- and consult with you all the way through to a successful campaign roll-out.

We hope you enjoy these posts as much as we did!

TGIF!