Jul 11

Response June: Highmark, Direct Tech, and the Retail Revolution

Here’s hoping everyone had a great 4th of July holiday! After returning from a week in Massachusetts, visiting my wife’s family and friends, I pushed through my inbox and some other pressing matter to give myself a few moments to put together a quick recap of Response‘s June issue. While we’re still getting back on track with timing following late April’s Response Expo, the issue has been online and hitting mailboxes for more than 2 weeks now. Led by a cover story on one of Blue Cross Blue Shield‘s largest affiliates, Highmark, the issue also includes features on the wider healthcare and pharmaceuticals market and a pair of loosely connected stories: a roundtable on the vast effects of Amazon on marketers and retailers of all stripes; and our second quarterly Advisors Forum of 2017, which tackles the rapidly changing retail space. Looking for background on how these items — and more — came together? You’ve come to the right place.

  • The cover feature on Pittsburgh-based Highmark — featuring an interview with Chris Zdanowski, director, strategic marketing, senior markets, commercial markets, and retail — had its beginnings in an email pitch from Highmark’s agency, Partners + Napier, in February. Shortly thereafter, I connected with Becca Bellush, the agency’s associate director of PR and social media, who served as an outstanding liaison between the Highmark team and me. Not only was this story a pleasure to work on from start to finish, due to the accessibility of Bellush, Zdanowski, and all others involved, but it also bore out many of the concepts we’ve been talking about recently in Response. The highlighted campaign features a mix of online and offline media, has a clear and measurable goal, and maximizes back-end technology to track results. If you missed the link to the story above, here it is once again: Marketing With High Marks
  • Beyond Highmark’s success using performance-based marketing tactics, our freelancer Bridget McCrea tackled a wider look at what’s new in marketing across the healthcare and pharmaceutical markets. She found marketers, both large and small, utilizing new technology to take their messages — and more importantly, their services — directly to consumers, at the time and place they wish. From using secure, online video chat to apps that allow patients to make more informed decisions about their care, health and pharma marketers are ahead of the technological game. In case you skipped the link above: The Future of Healthcare Has Arrived — and It’s D-to-C
  • Riffing from one of our most popular sessions at Response Expo, a third feature — penned by freelancer Doug McPherson — takes a look at the many ways Amazon is changing business, from the top of the sales funnel to the bottom. We enlisted three of the speakers from that “Amazon Effect” Expo session — Jaffer Ali of PulseTV.com, Matt Fiedler of Vinyl Me, Please, and Rus Sarnoff of Integrated Marketing — to give us an overview of a few of those issues. Here’s that story link again: It’s a Jungle Out There
  • The second of our quarterly roundtables featuring members of the Response Advisory Board takes a look at the changing face of retail. Early in May, I sent a series of questions to our advisors and five leaders stepped up to share their thoughts on how brick-and-mortar and e-commerce can not only coexist but flourish as consumer desires — and their attendant habits — change. If you missed the link, it’s right here: The Changing Face of Retail
  • Our monthly direct response TV and radio media billings return to the DR radio sector for fourth-quarter 2016 results. The radio market notched a fifth consecutive quarterly increase — this time, 6.7 percent. However, the big news is that 2016’s total of $69.9 million marked the radio market’s best year since 2004. How did it happen? For a full look at 4Q 2016 DR radio media billings, click here: DR Radio Billings Continue Winning Streak to Close 2016
  • Other key items in this month’s issue include:
  • My Editor’s Note column riffs off of an idea I’ve formulated recently while attending industry events and thumbing through other publications. And it closes with a concept you’re going to see an awful lot of in the coming months — more pointedly than ever before. If you’ve been inattentive to the direction Response has taken and if you missed the link above, here it is: The Third Leg — Media Drives Technology and Commerce

Thanks again for reading and interacting with Response!

Oct 05

Response September: Supplements and Subscription Boxes Shed Light on Shifting Marketing Philosophies

Response September 2016Two weeks ago, Response’s September issue hit the web — after initially debuting, in print, at our DRMA Marketer of the Year event in Las Vegas on Sept. 14. Today seems like a good time to look back on the issue and dig into the particulars surrounding some of the key stories. The issue is led by a cover feature on health-and-wellness supplement marketer NutraClick and its Harvard-educated CMO, Patrick Carroll. The issue also features our annual look at the consumer packaged goods market, our 21st Annual State of the Industry report — featuring insight from members of the Response Advisory Board, and a feature touching on the latest trends affecting teleservices providers. Read on for more:

  • The name Patrick Carroll first popped into my consciousness in late 2015, on a call with Rus Sarnoff of Integrated Marketing. Rus has been a huge help for the Response team in planning and prepping our educational sessions at Response Expo for most of the past decade — in fact, along with Greg Sarnow, he’s the co-chair of our new DRMA Education Committee. Rus mentioned NutraClick and Patrick during a planning call for this past April’s Expo, and he was very passionate about Patrick’s capabilities both as CMO of NutraClick and as a possible speaker. I spoke with Patrick and Shannon Costello, the PR contact at NutraClick in early 2016, and though we didn’t have a fit for him on our main educational stage, we were able to place him on our sponsored Pre-Show Intensive panel. And, I must say, Rus was right — Patrick is as knowledgeable and thoughtful as they come. Once the Expo was over, it was just a matter of time before we slated NutraClick for a cover feature on its outstanding omnichannel marketing efforts for its successful products like Force Factor and ProbioSlim. If you missed the link to the story above, here it is once again: Tipping the Scales
  • Another annual staple, our feature what’s new in the consumer packaged goods space jumps full speed ahead into the burgeoning “subscription box” space. From cosmetics to razors to baby supplies — and more — delivered-monthly subscription boxes are changing the game in the CPG space more than just about any other vertical. Our Nicole Urso Reed focuses on three key marketers having success in these new models. Here’s that story link again: Delivering a Brand New Package
  • In our 21st Annual State of the Industry Report, 10 members of our Advisory Board took part in answering more than 15 questions about the present and future of performance-based marketing. The new realities of an omnichannel marketing world, expanding consumer control of the marketing funnel, how marketers can attribute sales to a specific marketing outreach, and the future of TV/video content — and advertising’s place in it — are just a few of the topics tackled. Bonus: the online version includes the full and unabridged answers from all of our board members who took part — an impossibility in our limited print pages. Just in case you skipped the link above: Response Magazine’s 21st Annual State of the Industry Report
  • In the second of our series of features on the back-end vendor services space (last month, we touched on payment processing, with a fulfillment feature slated for October), our Doug McPherson spoke with a trio of leaders on the teleservices side of the business. With how consumers can respond to marketing messages shifting heavily toward the web, teleservices providers are getting more specialized when it comes to serving as order centers, while — at the same time — expanding their customer service capabilities to respond to the growing “click-to-call” mobile response universe. Read more about the current state of teleservices here: Getting the Call
  • Our monthly direct response TV and radio media billings return to the DR radio space for first-quarter 2016 results. For the sixth time in the past seven quarters, radio dialed in for success. In fact, the total DR radio spend in 1Q 2016 — $18,344,000 — represents the best first-quarter result in the medium in 12 years. Why is radio continuing to grow at such an incredible pace? For a full look at 1Q 2016 DR radio media billings, click here: DR Radio Rocks Out in 1Q 2016
  • Other key items in this month’s issue include:
  • Finally, I use my side gig as an in-season online college football columnist for an angle to kick off this month’s Editor’s Note column. Right before I sat down to write this month’s column, I’d just wrapped up my wide-ranging preview of the Pac-12 football season (side note: through five weeks, I’ve picked 39 of 45 results correctly) and it got me thinking: what if marketers had to wait weeks — or even months — to find out the results of their hard work? Far-fetched? Take a look and let me know: Measuring Success? There’s Not a Second to Lose

Thanks again for reading and interacting with Response!