This Month at Lenser July 2007

Newsletter Archive

PRESIDENT'S CORNER
Introducing LENSER Analytics
By John Lenser, President
At LENSER, it is our mission to help our clients achieve their goals, including higher sales and profits.  To further this mission, LENSER is developing a host of new analytical, database, and e-commerce services to complement our present consulting, circulation management, and creative services. 

FEATURE ARTICLE
Busting the Creativity Myth
By Carol Worthington-Levy, Creative Partner
Everywhere we look today, from media to conversation, creativity is a topic that grabs attention.  Ad agencies pride themselves in being THE purveyors of great creativity, making clients feel that creative thoughts and ideas don’t exist within their own organization.  Hogwash!  Click here.

CASE STUDY
How a Shipping and Handling Analysis Can Lead Your Company to Greater Profits
By Anna-Lisa Ulbrich, Circulation and Marketing Manager
When was the last time you took a close look at your shipping and handling table?  Because undercharging on shipping and handling can result in significant lost revenue, analyzing this part of your business is very important…  Learn more.

CIRCULATION TIP
When RFM Segmentation Just Isn’t Enough
By Alexandra Singer, Senior Circulation and Marketing Manager
All mailers are special, but many LENSER clients are unique among their peers, in that traditional RFM segmentation just isn’t enough for them.  Here are some interesting ways in which our clients are segmenting their files, each tailored to that individual business...  Find out.

CREATIVE TIP
3 Easy Steps to Selling Complex Products
By Carol Worthington-Levy, Creative Partner
Catalog copywriters and designers are experienced at showing a picture or writing a paragraph or two about a product, but they often don’t know how to handle complex products.  This inexperience can lead to a confused customer who does not buy.  Where does the disconnect occur and can it be resolved to create better sales?  It’s all in thinking like a salesman...  Read how.

multichannel TIP
Incremental Demand to Maximize Marketing Initiatives
By Travis Seaton, Director of Circulation, Specialty Groups
One month ago you received an order through the internet from a new customer.  You send a catalog that reaches them two months later.  This customer then comes back to the internet and places another order.  The natural conclusion is that the catalog drove the second order and therefore it was a successful marketing contact.  True of false?

CLIENT HIGHLIGHT—GAELSONG
When we heard the story of how Colleen Connell founded GaelSong over twenty years ago, we couldn’t help but smile.  It’s always fascinating to hear how our clients began their businesses, and Colleen’s tale was better than most...  Read on.

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT—MELISSA STEPHENSON
The relationship between Melissa Stephenson and LENSER goes way back. For years, the staff at LENSER was familiar with Melissa’s quality of work while she was employed at service bureau Triplex Direct Marketing Corp. When Triplex moved processing to Wisconsin, Melissa stayed in sunny California and their loss was our gain!  Read more...

AFFILIATE FOCUS—MARKETLIVE
Ken Burke founded the company as Multimedia Live in 1995 with only $500 in start-up money.  Today MarketLive, Inc. is one of the leading providers of e-commerce retail technology and services for selling online, and powers more than 150 retail websites generating over 2 billion dollars in sales annually.  What is the secret to their success?

NEWS BRIEF

• LENSER welcomes The Rudd Group, Revival Animal Health, DineWise, Online Trading Academy, and Magellan’s to our family of clients.

• As we continue to grow, we continue to add top-notch staff.  This month LENSER welcomes Pam Grant as our Controller.  Pam, a CPA and graduate of the Haas Business School, has worked for large firms such as Deloitte & Touche, as well as small boutique firms and most recently, a prominent non-profit.  To learn more about Pam, click here.  Welcome to LENSER, Pam!

• LENSER is pleased to announce the recent promotions of Alexandra Singer and Matt Morton to Senior Circulation and Marketing Managers.  Both Alexandra and Matt continue to exhibit superior services while delivering exception results on behalf of their clients and the firm.  In their own way, Alexandra and Matt exhibit a positive and enthusiastic "can do" attitude with their willingness to assist in various ways.  Their contribution to the overall success of the LENSER and our clients is invaluable. Congratulations!

• Attention, LENSER Clients!  Sign up NOW for the LENSER Client Summit, scheduled for Wednesday through Friday, October 3-5, 2007 at the Embassy Suites in San Rafael, CA.  Please click here for complete details.  Don’t forget to make plans to stay over the weekend in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area. 

• To ensure delivery of your monthly eNews from LENSER, please remember to add newsletter@lenser.com to your address book.  To sign up for the LENSER eNews, please contact michele.salmon@lenser.com.
  

PRESIDENT'S CORNER
Introducing LENSER Analytics
By John Lenser, President

At LENSER, it is our mission to help our clients achieve their goals, including higher sales and profits.  To further this mission, LENSER is developing a host of new analytical, database, and e-commerce services to complement our present consulting, circulation management, and creative services.  I would like to introduce LENSER Analytics.  

The LENSER Analytics team combines our corporate core competencies—multichannel marketing consulting, strategic planning, customer relationship and circulation management—with data processing best practices and reporting methods innovation.  This team, headed by Todd Miller, one of our most experienced directors, has designed a suite of solutions that will assist you in better strategic planning, marketing, and operations:

Five-Year Financial Plan 
The team has developed an interactive financial model that can be applied to your business allowing you to easily explore different growth scenarios and the financial and human resources required.  The model simulates the growth of your housefile and available prospects over five years and applies the resulting sales and advertising expense to a detailed five-year P & L and cash flow requirement. 

Cost of Customer Acquisition and Lifetime Value Analysis 
With customers being acquired via multiple channels with very different costs and long-term results, such analysis is becoming increasingly critical in properly allocating marketing resources.  This analysis will focus on analyzing each channel for initial cost of customer acquisition and the post-initial purchase lifetime value of a customer. 

ZIP Penetration Analysis 
The old adage that "birds of a feather flock together" very often rings true and, when applied to direct marketing, can help you better target your mailings.  We determine what clusters of ZIP codes contain your best customers and focus prospecting efforts toward these clusters.  While this technique is not appropriate for all marketers, it has proven highly successful for many of our clients.  Today, it also has the added advantage of improving postal qualifications by concentrating your mail in highly productive ZIP codes.  

House File Segmentation Analysis 
The LENSER Analytics team will review all the variables contained in, or that can be appended to, your house file to determine which are predictive of future response and what contact method(s) should be used.  While core segmentation elements such as RFM may be adequate, other variables such as gender, home ownership, payment method, or method of order placement and origination (mail, phone, or internet) may allow improved targeting and save significant mail expense.

Shipping and Handling Charges Analysis 
We have created an analysis that allows you to explore the impact of different shipping costs by combining fee data with merchandise billed per order information.  You will receive a chart of scenarios that will increase fees collected without offending profitable customers—all in the context of what similarly-positioned multichannel marketers are charging.  (See Anna-Lisa’s Case Study in this month’s eNewsletter.)

Retail Trade Area Analysis 
If you are contemplating opening retail stores, we can help you make better location decisions.  We will study your present direct marketing penetration to gain an understanding of where high concentrations of existing customers reside.  This information will be expanded by using demographic data and purchasing data from customers like yours.  This analysis will be put in the context of required logistical support. 

FEATURE ARTICLE
Busting the Creativity Myth
By Carol Worthington-Levy, Creative Partner

Everywhere we look today, from media to conversation, creativity is a topic that grabs attention.  Advertising agencies and design studios pride themselves in being THE purveyors of great creativity, and make a point of convincing the public and their clients, in particular, that they and only they are truly creative, and that this is what every client wants and needs.

They also work pretty hard at making clients feel that creative thoughts and ideas don’t exist within the client organization, and that “the suits,” as they like to refer to business owners, accountants, marketers, etc. don’t know what good creative is.

Hogwash!

Creativity, referred to in more practical circles as Innovation, is not in the realm of the professional creative alone.  Ironically, some creatives are so caught up in showing how creative they are that they sacrifice the most essential things a client needs when it comes to successful campaigns—affinity with the customer, enrollment into new ideas, and pure, undiluted salesmanship.

A fascinating study on creativity was conducted by the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School in 1996.  It was developed to determine exactly where creativity exists within organizations of all sorts.  This study encompassed nearly 12,000 daily journal entries by 238 people working on creative projects in seven different companies ranging from high tech and chemical industries to consumer goods and services.  None of the participants were aware that the focus of the study was actually creativity, as it was ostensibly about ideas and challenges, and how people struggled and succeeded in solving problems.

One of the most important aspects of this study had to do with the environment people worked in.  The study showed how some workplaces can provide a place for creativity to thrive, while other work environments quash creativity due to management practices and other factors.

The study, first revealed to business magazine Fast Company, overturns some long-standing myths about creativity—who has it, who doesn’t, and where it exists.

Here are some of the myths that this study busted:

1. Creativity at its best comes from your creative team or advertising agency.

They’ve been trained to be creative, right?  But their creativity is not always applicable for their clients’ realities.  Since many creatives who work in advertising have rarely been given solid basic sales training, they turn again and again to “finding a creative solution” that would “wow” their peers, earn awards, and be a lot of fun to talk about at agency functions.

It takes not only well-honed creative skills like writing and design, but also a willingness to give up “self” and instead, embrace the wants and needs of the prospective or existing customer to create the most effective strategies for getting a product into the most customers’ hands.

Everyone has times when they are and are not creative, so there should be no “ownership” of the best creative solutions.  And in fact, some of the best creative solutions come from other areas of a company, including “the suits” sometimes disdained by traditional creatives.
 

2. You can’t expect creativity from accounting or “the suits.”

This is absolutely not true.  The joke about “creative accounting” is actually not so far off base.  Those working in numbers still have problems to solve—and not all of them can be solved with a calculator.  Engineers have a grasp of creative in the most abstract way when it comes to delivering solutions that one can’t see with the naked eye or describe in basic language.  Business owners need practical creative skills to figure out how to get funding, how to expand their product line, and how to negotiate contracts with outside vendors that will help them to grow without going broke in the process.  Often our own LENSER clients are showing a high degree of creativity when they break the traditional mold that says their circulation must be kept in-house, and this creative flexibility saves them money and resources.  Yes, creativity is not for creatives alone.

3. Money motivates creativity.

The Harvard study also revealed that most people don’t think about money that may be coming to them when they’re in the process of solving problems.  Yes, people need to feel they’re being compensated fairly to have full stake in the game, but in fact, they place equal or higher value on how they’re supported, valued, and recognized.

The creative individual enjoys digging into a problem and progressing to a solution.  This is one area where the environment can support or hinder creativity; if there’s no recognition at the other end, the problem-solvers feel that they’re the only ones who cared about finding the solution, leaving them isolated.  Likewise, if a manager mismatches staff to the problems at hand, they may leave an employee under-challenged or working on problems they haven’t the skill or capability to solve.  The subsequent loss in morale leads to not only less effective solutions, but less dedication to actually solving them.

The bottom line:  those in management need to know who they’re working with and recognize skill levels and interest levels to take full advantage of creative problem-solving potential.

4. People are at their most creative when on tight deadlines.

Even problem-solvers themselves may believe the myth that time pressure will help them find more creative solutions—but the Harvard study showed that this is simply not true.  In fact, short deadlines not only reduced creative capability the day that the problem needed to be solved, but for the two days following, creative energy and capability were also diminished.

Here’s why:  time pressure doesn’t allow people to engage deeply in solving a problem, and effective creativity requires an incubation period to be at its best.  Without that time, creative problem-solving is actually stifled.  What makes this situation even more pronounced is that rarely can someone on deadline work uninterrupted, and this is yet another stifling factor. 

If a tight deadline is unavoidable, the best way to get the result you want is to isolate the problem-solver from interruption and remind them that you recognize their contribution and are dedicated to the solution being found.

5. When an organization is pared down, it brings out the creative side of individuals who need to “work smarter.”

This myth is one that’s propagated by companies that are trying to build morale as they lop off essential personnel in order to create a better bottom-line for shareholders.  A typical PR letter to shareholders from a major U.S. software company, cited by Fast Company, said, “A downsizing such as this one is always difficult for employees, but out of tough times can come strength, creativity, and teamwork.” 

Most of us would see through that immediately as a tap dance; and in fact, a downsizing is one of the most deadly morale-killers in the business world.  The cause of this is fear of the unknown—the “what will happen next?” which leads employees, across the board, to disengage from the company and lose the ownership they would normally feel when problem-solving.  The most significant statistic?  The study showed that five months after such an event creativity was still measurably down.

6. Fear is a bigger motivator in finding creative solutions than happiness.

The idea that fear fuels breakthroughs is one we see in the movies—but in real life it’s untrue.  While we may hear the myth that the greatest artists and writers were depressed, the population as a whole is not as effective at creative problem-solving when fearful or depressed. 

The study specifically found that the problem solvers were at their most creative and had the biggest breakthroughs when they were happy the day before they solved the challenge.  One consideration is that they’d be unhindered by negative thoughts and as a result, could work on the problem in the back of their minds even while taking on other issues.

7. Setting up “bake-offs” between advertising or design agencies is a great way to see their very best creative work.

Creatives and those facing problems to solve are often placed in competitive environments such as sales pitches that involve what’s been nicknamed a “bake-off” involving speculative, unpaid work.  Likewise, in many engineering environments, product managers are pitted against each other to come up with the best ideas while the environment becomes hot and antagonistic. 

In both of these cases, the solutions derived are rarely of the quality as those in which collaboration and good treatment are priorities.  To be at peak creativity and best problem solving levels, an environment of appreciation and respect will draw out better and more practical solutions.  Research and study is more likely to take place with less pressure to “strut and show off.”  It’s because of this that spec work is almost never the smartest work, and therefore a waste of time for both the presenter and those soliciting it.

Problem-solvers with experience have a deep collection of stories and examples that show their capability; thus, the quality of those solutions is a much better indicator of what a client can expect from a team.  And in the described competitive engineering environment, eliminating the competition and instead rewarding collaboration is the fastest way to encourage top talent to come up with the most effective solutions quickly.

8. The one who was creative enough to develop a product is also the most appropriate to create the solution of selling it.

The myth that the one who knows it best is the one who can sell it best is ignoring some of the most basic principles of problem-solving.

Because the developer of a product or an idea often has much to gain or lose in the success of the promotion campaign, few are able to work on the campaign themselves without a deep and often unacknowledged fear that the campaign will fail and they’ll look foolish.  There is also the issue of the developer being “too close” to the product, so they can’t have compassion for the prospect who has never considered this product before—thus already breaking down communication to the potential customer. 

This again is a case of where collaboration with an expert in marketing and selling is most likely to bring the best result and generate the most success.

The bottom line on creativity:  it’s everywhere within your company, and not just where those pesky creatives with their Macs reside!  And best yet, you can cultivate positively it through providing the basics that should be provided every employee:  information, time, support and recognition.

Research sources:
Fast Company, 12/04, author Ben Breen
Teresa Amible, Entrepreneurial Management Unit, Harvard Business School

CASE STUDY
How a Shipping and Handling Analysis Can Lead Your Company to Greater Profits
By Anna-Lisa Ulbrich, Circulation and Marketing Manager

When was the last time you took a close look at your shipping and handling table?  Shipping and handling not only covers the cost to ship an item to your customer, but also covers the operational expenses of shipping merchandise from your supplier to your warehouse, receiving that merchandise into stock, and picking and packing each item before mailing to your customer.  Because undercharging on shipping and handling can result in significant lost revenue, analyzing this part of your business is very important.

Some common questions that might lead to a Shipping and Handling Analysis would be:

1. Are your competitors charging more or less than you?  Depending on how you’ve positioned yourself in your market, you could be charging too much, or not enough, compared to the rest of the players in your arena.

2. Are you losing money on shipping and handling?  Shipping and handling should not be in the red on your income statement—in fact, depending on your AOV, shipping and handling can be a nice profit center.

3. Can an adjustment to your shipping and handling table help offset the recent postal increase?  Most mailers are focusing on ways to decrease costs to mitigate the increase, but another option could be to find a way to grow your revenue.

4. If you do decide to raise your rates, what type of impact could this have on the way your customers respond to your offer?  Certain rate scenarios could offend some of your most profitable customers; others might not even notice.

Below is an example where a mailer summed the amount of shipping and handling charges that were collected per a given month, or campaign.  If the mailer’s shipping expenses, including operating expenses, on the income statement were greater than the shipping and handling collected, changes to the table needed to be made.  For this example, let’s assume that total shipping expenses were $617,540—a loss of just over 3%.

Next, a series of pro forma shipping and handling tables were created to illustrate what it would take to reach the profitability goal:

Scenario #1

In this scenario, the bulk of the change affects customers in the lower brackets, while keeping the big spenders flat.  Note that our new rate adjustments will bring in slightly over $615,000 in shipping and handling revenue—still slightly below our costs.

Scenario #2

In this scenario, everyone will feel the effects of increases, small and big spenders alike.  Again, note that our new rate adjustments will bring in over $679,000 in shipping and handling revenue—a profit of 10%.

CIRCULATION TIP
When RFM Segmentation Just Isn’t Enough
By Alexandra Singer, Senior Circulation and Marketing Manager

All mailers are special, but many LENSER clients are unique among their peers, in that traditional RFM segmentation just isn’t enough for them.  We like to help identify and then segment by meaningful factors on your housefile.  This can be useful when deciding 1) how deeply to mail into the buyer file, 2) which catalog covers to use, and 3) how much to mail a contact during a season.  Here are some interesting ways in which our clients are segmenting their files, each tailored to that individual business:

A wedding mailer is segmenting by wedding date in order to maximize contacts during the key bridal buying season.  A military cataloger is segmenting by military branch and particular conflict to better target the right consumer with the right merchandise.  We also know a catalog that segments by brand—those buyers who purchase the internal/house brand are more valuable than those who purchase outside brands due to margin.  Infant product mailers should be segmenting by anticipated due date since buying patterns change depending on where expectant or new parents are in their childbirth cycle.

A kitchen items mailer may want to segment by product category purchased—for example, someone who cans vegetables year after year may never be interested in buying cake decorating products.  But without knowing who’s who on your file, you’ll never be able to correctly target your catalogs.

CREATIVE TIP
3 Easy Steps to Selling Complex Products
By Carol Worthington-Levy, Creative Partner

Catalog copywriters and designers are experienced at showing a picture and writing a paragraph or two about a product, including the SKU and the price.  But they often don’t know how to handle a complex product that costs many hundreds, even thousands of dollars.  The outcome of this inexperience (which shows up even in seasoned writers and designers) will be a confused customer who does not buy.

Where does the disconnect occur, and how can it be resolved to create better sales?  It’s all in thinking like a salesman.

Everyone on the team who’s trying to sell complex products needs to take a lesson or two from some of the terrific salesmen on TV.  Call them schlocky, but you can also call these brazen broadcast salesmen highly successful.  The long form sales pitches on TV by Guthy Renker are a good example, as are many of the ads by Ron Popeil.

Here’s how you can use those guys as inspiration to create great-selling products that require more than just the rudimentary paragraph and photo…

1. Paginate wisely—a complex product simply can’t be sold in one paragraph.  This means that when paginating the catalog, allowances must be made to take a product like this and give it space to be sold.
   
   Now, this is assuming it’s expected to pay for its space.  Often square inch analysis will tell you if products pay for their space or not.  But in some cases, if this is a product that has done poorly but you know in your gut that it should work better, you may want to give it less significant space and draw the customer to it deep inside the catalog using exciting and interesting teasers.
   
   When you provide more space for selling, you give the creative team room to build a sale that’s both logical and compelling.  They have room for that big benefit-soaked headline needed to draw the customer into the page or spread.  You have room to show this item large enough—and even the outcome of using it—so that it’s not all crammed into a space that makes a postage stamp look like generous real estate.
   
   
2. Put yourself into the customer’s shoes, and pretend this is the first time you’ve ever seen the product.  How would you like to be ‘fed’ information about this product? What are the unique selling propositions that should lead the way in the selling?
   
   Then, break up the message into logical blocks, and in some cases, sidebar some of the support information.
   
   Sometimes verbal descriptions don’t really show the thing that makes a product worthwhile or different, so photos with clear, easy-to-read captions are needed to encourage the customer to look further.
   
   To get more support information that will help you create this “sell,” show the product to a friend who might be in that market, and ask them what’s important to them.  Listen in on customer service conversations about this product.  Do some online research, if need be, to find out from customers what they need in a product like this.
   
   While this seems like a lot of work, consider this an investment in selling a product that may bring in many times the income compared to the shorter-copy products.
   
   
3. Do a demonstration and provide support—as seen on TV!  Show the product as a whole, then show detail shots of the highlights—either the product pieces themselves, or show the outcome of using different features to help the customer focus on the benefits.
   
   Support the selling with some brief and targeted testimonials from happy customers.  You can further support it by getting an expert to talk about it in a separate sidebar.  If it’s been rated in comparison to others of its kind and is coming out on top, flaunt that as well.
   
   And write a strong call to action!  If the product has addendum items, offer it first as a complete bundle with all of its added items together for one great price, reminding them of the savings when they get the bundle.  Then below that, break it out and sell the products individually.

If you are concerned that your team may lack the expertise and these 3 steps don’t help you get them fired up to sell it better, speak to someone who has expertise in this area.  Ask them to at least draw up a rough and give you examples of headlines and the break-down of information to get your team going.

multichannel TIP
Incremental Demand to Maximize Marketing Initiatives
By Travis Seaton, Director of Circulation, Specialty Groups

In order to maximize your marketing effort by channel, it’s imperative that you understand the incremental demand being driven by your marketing initiatives.  There is a natural rate of shopping for your customers, and the goal in marketing is to create incremental demand, above and beyond this natural rate of shopping.  An example would be as follows:

One month ago you received an order through the internet from a new customer.  You send this new customer a catalog that reaches them two months after their initial purchase.  This customer then comes back to the internet and places another order.  The natural conclusion is that the catalog drove the second order and therefore it was a successful marketing contact.

The conclusion to the example above may or may not be true.  Did the catalog drive the second order or was the customer naturally going to come back through the internet and buy again?  The same example can be used for any channel (internet, call center, retail) and for any contact type (catalog, email, postcard, outbound call, etc.).  For this reason, it is clear that it’s important to understand the incremental demand being driven by any marketing contact. 

An easy and accurate way to track incremental demand is to create hold-out panels for the marketing initiative that you employ.  The first step is to determine what size hold-out group you will need in order to gain statistical significance.  A good method is to use a t-test to determine the sample size that you will need in order to measure the difference between groups (mailed vs. non-mailed, emailed vs. non-emailed).  Then during your marketing preparation, you will create completely random hold-out groups that will not receive the marketing contact.  When the marketing campaign is complete, conduct a matchback to the hold-out group(s) to determine the natural rate of shopping.  The difference will determine the incremental demand driven by the initiative.  You can then incorporate the cost of that initiative to determine whether it was profitable or not.

CLIENT HIGHLIGHT—GAELSONG

When we heard the story of how Colleen Connell founded GaelSong over twenty years ago, we couldn’t help smiling.  It’s always fascinating to hear how our clients began their businesses, and Colleen’s tale was no different.

While trekking around Ireland in 1986, Colleen stumbled upon some beautiful, well-made, and incredibly cheap Celtic knot earrings in a store.  Though at the time she had no clue what she’d do once she found him, she began a mad search across the Irish countryside and through tiny hamlets looking for the jeweler.  When she finally located him, she bought out his entire stock with a cash advance from her credit card!  Back in Berkeley, California, she set up a table at a local flea market and sold each pair of earrings for $2, but quickly realized when that batch sold out that she’d been undercharging.  Needless to say, she raised her prices, and continued to sell out of the unique items she’d brought back from Ireland.

“Starting with that first experience and continuing through my years of selling products at Renaissance Faires and Irish and Scottish festivals, I learned by doing.  Definitely it was trial by fire!” Colleen says.

After moving to Seattle and starting the GaelSong catalog in 1993, the business continued to slowly grow into something bigger and more multichannel.  Colleen had been attending the Annual Catalog Conference for years, encountering little that was applicable to her very small catalog business, when she happened to catch the tail end of one of John Lenser’s sessions at ACCM 2006…and was captivated.  “He gave us a formula for determining how many catalogs to put in the mail,” enthuses Colleen.  “I was amazed!  Before that, I’d decided how many books to mail based on what kind of capital I had available, but this really struck me as the more sensible approach.”  She approached John after the session and shortly thereafter decided to work with LENSER toward greater growth.

LENSER Partner Geoff Wolf, who works closely with GaelSong on their plans for growth and profitability, had this to say about Colleen and the business:  “Colleen is an example of a truly passionate entrepreneur who has built a very successful business through years of extremely hard work and good ol' common sense.  We are thrilled to be able to partner in taking GaelSong to the next level."

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT—MELISSA STEPHENSON

The relationship between Melissa Stephenson and LENSER goes way back. For years, the staff at LENSER was familiar with Melissa’s quality of work while she was employed at service bureau Triplex Direct Marketing Corp. When Triplex moved processing to Wisconsin, Melissa stayed in sunny California and their loss was our gain.

The change from backroom to front room has been a wonderful experience for Melissa, who says, “Before I just dealt with the data and didn’t see the entire scope of the project, so this experience at LENSER rounds out my knowledge of direct mail.”  The growth she was seeing at LENSER appealed to her as well.  “I wanted to branch out into other realms, so the challenges and diversities of every client have been a great learning experience.”

With LENSER continuing its focus on offering more data and analytical services, Melissa has been a tremendous resource for LENSER clients.  “With her extensive experience in data and merge/purge, she has brought significant resources that have allowed us to continue to evolve our client services,” says Michelle Houston, Vice President at LENSER.

Because of these skills in developing customized Lifetime Value (LTV) analyses from customer databases, as well as her stellar work providing Chronic Non-Responder (CNR) analyses for clients, Melissa has been promoted to Senior Database Analyst.  In this position, Melissa will be working with more of our clients to develop those studies as well as Zip Models and Shipping and Handling analyses to name just a few.

This last year for Melissa has been remarkable.  She notes, “The positive and friendly attitudes at LENSER have been wonderful.  The company has a feel of family within the team and that makes it a place you want to succeed.”

AFFILIATE FOCUS—MARKETLIVE

Ken Burke, now Chairman, Founder, & Chief Evangelist of MarketLive, Inc., founded the company as Multimedia Live in 1995 with only $500 in start-up money.  Currently recognized as an e-commerce industry pioneer and visionary, Ken was originally inspired by strategies and business methods from the cataloging and direct marketing world when he masterminded the creation of this enterprise-class e-commerce application, primarily designed to give merchants complete control over their online merchandising.

Today MarketLive, Inc. is one of the leading providers of e-commerce retail technology and services for selling online. The MarketLive® platform is an enterprise-class retail e-commerce solution specifically designed to meet the unique requirements of catalogers, retailers, direct marketers, and brand manufacturers.  MarketLive powers more than 150 retail websites, generating over 2 billion dollars in sales annually, including some of the most successful marketers in our industry.

MarketLive, Inc.’s success and the subsequent success of their clients’ online efforts can be attributed from the start to their understanding that the intelligent way to sell online is to base the sales approach on proven marketing and merchandising principles from traditional sales channels, and to adapt technology to make these principles work online.

“Everything your website does should have the sole aim of engaging with customers, anticipating their needs, providing the products and information they want, and addressing their needs in a respectful, thoughtful fashion,” says Burke.  “It is our daily mission and practice to improve the retail customer experience and to continually innovate the technology advances used to effectively sell online.”

This philosophy is evident in that way the MarketLive Platform has been redesigned and how it continues to evolve and to respond to the way people want to interact in the online environment.

LENSER was recently invited to attend the 2007 MarketLive E-Commerce Summit along with other MarketLive partners and over 200 MarketLive clients.  It was a packed agenda with activities and sessions designed to extend the attendee’s e-commerce education in an atmosphere of learning, creativity, and camaraderie.  There were a number of dynamic speakers covering important e-commerce developments and future trends in online marketing tactics as well as system training sessions and peer-to-peer roundtable discussions.

The most dynamic speaker at the event was Ken Burke himself—he shared many of the exciting and challenging visions of what the future has in store for both the MarketLive community and online marketing in general.  LENSER is proud to invite Ken to speak at the LENSER Summit in October, and if you have never experienced Ken’s dynamo energy and brilliant insights in person, you are in for a real treat.  Ken will be talking about “The Evolution of Internet Shopping Experience over the Next Five Years” and there are few people better able to elucidate this than the genius and driving force behind MarketLive’s ongoing success.

NEWS BRIEF

• LENSER welcomes The Rudd Group, Revival Animal Health, DineWise, Online Trading Academy, and Magellan’s to our family of clients.

• As we continue to grow, we continue to add top-notch staff.  This month LENSER welcomes Pam Grant as our Controller.  Pam, a CPA and graduate of the Haas Business School, has worked for large firms such as Deloitte & Touche, as well as small boutique firms and most recently, a prominent non-profit.  To learn more about Pam, click here.  Welcome to LENSER, Pam!

• LENSER is pleased to announce the recent promotions of Alexandra Singer and Matt Morton to Senior Circulation and Marketing Managers.  Both Alexandra and Matt continue to exhibit superior services while delivering exception results on behalf of their clients and the firm.  In their own way, Alexandra and Matt exhibit a positive and enthusiastic "can do" attitude with their willingness to assist in various ways.  Their contribution to the overall success of the LENSER and our clients is invaluable. Congratulations!

• Attention, LENSER Clients!  Sign up NOW for the LENSER Client Summit, scheduled for Wednesday through Friday, October 3-5, 2007 at the Embassy Suites in San Rafael, CA.  Please click here for complete details.  Don’t forget to make plans to stay over the weekend in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area. 

• To ensure delivery of your monthly eNews from LENSER, please remember to add newsletter@lenser.com to your address book.  To sign up for the LENSER eNews, please contact michele.salmon@lenser.com.