Interesting Marketing Links

Wow, another Friday is upon us. Hope you all have great plans for the weekend!

We'll start off this week's list of links we enjoyed with this post by Michael Fassnacht, apparently a self-proclaimed Marketing Geek. He discusses how many firms are moving their offerings from a transaction-based model to a subscription model (think the difference between Blockbuster retail and Netflix). Good food for thought, and it made me start to brainstorm about ways to offer a series of consulting services, instead of one-off projects. After all, it's nice to enjoy an assured revenue stream.

For those of you who think that print/snail mail is dead, take a look at this post from Jim Novo's Marketing Productivity blog. He cites a Wharton School study that found that snail mail engages its recipients higher than the e-mail equivalent. From the study: “It seems like a person sending a written note vs. a person sending email is investing more of himself or herself in that communication. It takes more effort to write a letter, and people often equate effort with how much a person cares.” Our take: in most cases it makes sense to employ a multi-channel strategy to take advantage of the benefits of several channels.

This Marketing Shift post got me thinking. It talks about the impact of credit cards on our economy, and how this will/should impact card marketing. "New rules regarding the marketing of credit cards and regulations in credit policies could be reality in the near future." Post goes on to say (perhaps brainstorming about what some of these rules may be): "If we want to avoid future credit crunches, credit card addicts should be cut off from their "dealers" more quickly. A maximum interest rate -- say 20 percent -- would go further in avoiding bankruptcies and foreclosure than the rules that are being changed regarding sub prime mortgages." Credit Card Marketers could certainly be the next industry under scrutiny.

Finally, for all of our readers who also write (wait, don't we all do that???), check out this post from CopyBlogger. It provides some neat tips to use when you're out of ideas, have writer's block and just can't think of anything good to write. I know that I will keep this post handy.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!