Great Links!

TGIF! And welcome to another edition of the Friday Blog Log. Here are some of our favorite links of the week.

Have you ever wondered what to do when your client calls you and says,"My direct mail campaign is failing miserably!" Instead of hiding under your desk, the Caslon Blog, "Worth Knowing," suggests that you dig right in and perform 3 simple steps to save the day. Here's an interesting point that we sometimes forget when we're in the middle of "life or death direct mail." It's behooves everyone to be successful -- both you and your client. This post brings up the point that it doesn't do the client any good to blame the consultant. It just makes them look like they didn't choose well. Instead, the post suggests that by being proactive, you can bring news -- good or bad-- very quickly to the client. This way you can plan together what steps to take very quickly, and how to implement a plan for immediate improvement.

There has been a lot of talk about what makes for a successful e-mail. We posted on this topic this week, as well, and discussed the importance of the from line, the subject line, and the preview pane. Dean Rieck, in his Direct Creative Blog, talks about creating compelling e-marketing campaigns from a copywriters perspective. On this post, he gives some really great advice on the copy and design elements of an e-mail message. In addition, he talks to the points of keeping the e-mail highly relevant and not too self-promotional. Make sure you don't miss this post for some excellent insight to consider for you next campaign!

We are huge fans of Becky Carroll's blog, Customers Rock! This week, she posted on how Wells Fargo has focused on wowing its customers -- then taking the next step and displaying this philosophy on the walls in the banks. Becky posts an excerpt of this philosophy from the banks website. It is really great to see a large bank take this step. This is definitely setting them apart from their competition, and I've experienced this customer focus myself when I recently switched banks and became a Wells Fargo customer. I've been very pleased with their customer service. They really consistently have gone the extra step for me. So, I know first hand that they aren't simply putting up posters. They really are practicing what they preach in the banking locations.

Finally, it looks like we may have missed out on a fun and interesting blogging event! Damn -- we hate it when that happens. There have been a plethora of posts regarding the Blogger Social '08 which was recently held in New York. I liked Servant Of Chaos, Gavin Heaton's blog post on the postmortem the best. Gavin talks about the huge sense of community that exists between bloggers -- and it's one that we experience every day. The title of the blog, "From Community to Family," sort of sums the whole thing up. Next year we're going!

Have a great weekend!