Mother Nature was out of sorts on July 24th and the 3rd Annual Direct Classic was rained out. However, Canyon Club was kind enough to arrange a rain date.

This means, if you didn’t sign up but were wishing you had, now you can! Remember, you don’t have to play golf to participate. You can be a sponsor, donate a prize, spend the day at the pool or come later for dinner and festivities. Anyone who’s participated will tell you it’s a load of fun no matter what you do.

And now, we’ll have a beautiful September day on which to enjoy the facilities!

3rd Annual Direct Classic
Raindate: Wednesday, September 24th – 10 AM tee time
Canyon Club in Armonk, NY

To learn more, call event chair John LaGreca at 845-201-8829, or email him at jlagreca@feddirect.com.

Click here for registration form. For your convenience, pay by PayPal to the right.

Register for Cocktail Party

Fore-play is more fun with HVDMA!
The 3rd Annual Direct Classic
Thursday, July 24th – 10 AM tee time
Canyon Club in Armonk, NY
Registration Form
In the case of rain, the event will be rescheduled for September 24th

Hit the links with your friends and colleagues for a day of golfing with the Hudson Valley DMA, DMCNY and MFSANY (the New York Chapter of the Mailing & Fulfillment Service Association). A great time is par for the course!

Event Details
Canyon Club, just off 684 in Armonk. Easy 10:00 AM tee off with Shotgun start. The format is four-person team “Scramble Best Ball” so every player has a realistic chance of winning.

Post-game: 5:00 pm Cocktail Reception followed by a full dinner, buffet style, with many awards and great raffle prizes. See Registration form for more information.

How to Participate
You can be part of the action by golfing, sponsoring, or by giving a gift we can raffle off. Funds raised support our educational events. Not a golfer? Play tennis, play softball, or just come for cocktails and dinner and join your friends for a fine time at this beautiful club. See Registration form for all the options.

Use PayPal!
For your convenience, use our new PayPal account. To secure your reservation:
1) Pay the appropriate amount via PayPal (see button at right).
2) Complete the Registration Form and fax to Amy Altmann at: 203-967-3608.

If you prefer to pay by check, then mail the completed form along with your check (payable to HVDMA) to Amy Altmann, Boardroom Inc., 281 Tresser Blvd., 8th Floor, Stamford, CT  06901.

For more info
Questions? Call event chair John LaGreca at 845-201-8829, or email him at jlagreca@feddirect.com.

Looking forward to seeing you!

An intimate group of Hudson Valley DMA members were pleased to learn “New Steps to Sales Success in a Changing Business Environment” at a special event in Stamford on June 4th. It was Coach Nick’s 4th annual HVDMA workshop on successful selling, and as you might expect from a “transformational business coach‿, he exceeded expectations.

The event, sponsored by Federal Direct, was structured as a brown bag lunch for a group of 30. It was a lively, interesting, highly interactive experience that had participants laughing as they expanded their knowledge of how to succeed in sales and business relationships.

Coach Nick (aka Nicholaos Papadopoulos) is Founder and Chief Sales Officer of Sky’s The Limit Corporation. His specialty is transformational business training to expand businesses, enhance communications and empower teams. His unique, systematized approaches to setting and reaching goals are highly effective not only for increasing sales, but for professionals looking to maintain themselves as a viable brand in the DM marketplace.

Some key tips he shared with workshop participants:

• Dealing with a difficult personality? Try using the phrase “would you consider…‿ when trying to get buy-in on a proposition.
• Asking for a referral? Be as specific as you can: narrow down the criteria of your sales target to make it easy to give you an appropriate lead.
• Want to improve your “elevator pitch‿? Keep it focused on the other person – how your business provides benefits to them.
• Use the law of reciprocity to build a steady network of referrals.
• And much more.

Two lucky participants received prizes of free, one-on-one training sessions with Coach Nick. But everyone left feeling like a winner. To learn more about Coach Nick visit www.skysthelimitcorp.com.

Next HVDMA events are: The 3rd Annual Direct Golf Classic (with DMCNY and MFSANY), July 24th; the Summer Cocktail Party, August 5th; and Meet the Masters, October 1st.

Get tee-ed off in the best way – with HVDMA!
The 3rd Annual Direct Classic
Thursday, July 24th – 10 AM tee time
Canyon Club in Armonk, NY

Hit the links with your friends and colleagues for a great day of golfing with the Hudson Valley, DMCNY and MFSANY (the New York Chapter of the Mailing & Fulfillment Service Association). This event is always a great one.

Event Details
Canyon Club, just off 684 in Armonk. Easy 10:00 AM tee off Shotgun start. The format is  four-person team “Scramble Best Ball” so every player has a realistic chance of winning. 

Post-game: 5:00 pm Cocktail Reception followed by a full dinner, buffet style, with many awards and great raffle prizes.

How to Participate
You can be part of the action by golfing, sponsoring, or by giving a gift we can raffle off. Funds raised support our educational events. Don’t play? Come to dinner and join your friends for a fine time at this beautiful club.

Use Paypal!
For your convenience, a Paypal account will be up soon on the HVDMA site. So save the date and standby for complete registration information.

For more info
Call John LaGreca at 845-201-8829, or email him at jlagreca@feddirect.com. John will assist you with forms, directions and prize ideas.

Honors the Memory of Laura L. Smith

Direct marketers met for an intimate, interactive session at the 3rd annual HVDMA Round Table event  at Fairview Country Club in Greenwich, CT on April 9th. The event was sponsored by Lake Group Media.

As the meeting began, everyone stood to observe a minute of silence to honor the memory of longtime HVDMA leader Laura Smith of RMI. Her sudden death earlier that week left many in the DM community stunned and deeply saddened. The meeting was dedicated to her memory and her exceptional contribution to the industry as a respected professional, and a beloved friend.

Although subdued, it was an excellent meeting. Five Round Tables, each hosted by a Guest Facilitator, covered a selection of today’s pressing DM concerns. Topics and discussion leaders were:

• Email Creative - with Jane Weber of Taunton Press
• Creative Prospecting: How to Maximize Testing in a Difficult Environment - with Salena Mahr of Redcats USA
• Multi-Title Marketing - with Philip Ketonis of Hachette
• Reactivation - with Kristine Cucurello of Wine Enthusiast
• Partnerships - with Tom Rocco of Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health

A two-session format, with a coffee break in between, enabled attendees to participate in two different Round Tables and come away with a number of new ideas to apply to their own direct marketing efforts. Some useful factoids:

• It’s still the mix that works the magic. Marketers can’t always track which communication drives the sale, but believe it’s the multi-channel impressions that ultimately lead to action.
• In any channel, you still need to test against your control. In one test, a cataloguer saw a 50% lift when their special offer was delivered in an envelope.
• Different channels have different relationship requirements in aspects such as frequency. E.g. emailing the same or similar offer every week becomes like wallpaper.
• Consumers still like to receive a free item, or free shipping, more then a discount.
• Catalog customers like interactivity: bingo cards, scratch off tickets, contests and sweepstakes.
• Partnership marketing takes an average of 6 months to start producing results. Make sure that the return is substantial and worth the time spent.
• Develop synergistic partnerships with leaders in the field, but keep it simple – don’t overcomplicate your deals or expectations.
• Don’t overlook the value of your in-house database to reactivate old customers.
• Treat holiday buyers as a separate customers from the rest of year.
• What is it about Tuesdays? Old wisdom was that it was the best day to email – now we hear Tuesdays are the biggest email opt-out day!

As the meeting ended, HVDMA president Lauretta Harris of Write Communications announced that a donation would be made to the Arbor Day Foundation, Laura Smith’s favorite charity.

The next HVDMA event will be a “Coach Nick� workshop on June 4th. Coach Nick is an extremely popular and effective transformational business coach (www.skysthelimitcorp.com). More information will be posted soon.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Lake Group Media, offering the experience, knowledge and innovative ideas to fund, plan, build and analyze a profitable mail program. For more information contact Ryan Lake at Ryan.Lake@Lakegroupmedia.com.

 

Laura L. Smith
October 27, 1964 – April 5, 2008

It is with deepest sorrow that we mourn the untimely passing of our dear friend, colleague and fellow Board member, Laura Smith. Laura was involved with the Hudson Valley DMA since its earliest days and was devoted to its growth and success. She served as President more than once, and has been a guiding light as a member of the Steering Committee. Laura brought professionalism, enthusiasm and incredible energy to all of her projects and involvements. She is irreplaceable. Her intelligence, charm, humor and beauty will be sorely missed. She lives on in our memory and our hearts.

http://www.legacy.com/Link.asp?I=LS000107225880X

Relevance and Targeting were the keywords to interactive marketing success at the Hudson Valley DMA’s 7th Annual Meet the Presidents event, titled Inside the Internet, held January 30 at the Fairview Country Club in Greenwich.

The meeting was presided over by Lauretta Harris of Write Communications, President of the Hudson Valley DMA. Rich Mercado of Madison Direct moderated a panel of interactive communications specialists featuring:

Joseph Feigenbaum, President, TDO Integrated Marketing Communications
Fern Galperin, President, Fern Galperin Web Sites
Valorie Luther, Founder & CEO, Creative Concepts Consultants
Matthew Staudt, President & Country Head, Interactive Marketing Group, Inc.

In today’s world of blogs and Facebook, e-newsletters and e-chats, it’s easy to fall into the “trough of disillusionment,� said Feigenbaum. You’ve built your site, your budget is spent and no one is coming. You need to be out there with integrated positioning and a brand development plan to bring people to you and generate ROI online.

Can it be done? Our experts agreed that social websites, blogs and appropriate Internet marketing are a smart and necessary part of your multi-channel marketing mix.

“Blogs are ideal because you can manage your own message. They are a great focus group and crisis management tool.� said Luther. Via a blog, you can instantaneously hear what someone experienced and make internal changes to accommodate your customers.  But, you have to be prepared to deal with the bad as well as the good. “It’s still the Wild West out there,� warned Galperin.

Blogs can be promoted by traditional PR and direct mail, as well as reaching out to people on “similar interest� blogs. Feigenbaum uses online, print, advertising and direct mail to drive traffic to his clients blogs. All promotions are highly targeted and become increasingly efficient with each campaign. Staudt stressed that websites and blogs with chat capabilities which offer immediate answers and call backs are a strong asset for service-based companies.

Social sites such as Facebook and YouTube are the upcoming marketing venue, offering direct connections to self-selected new audiences. Though the panel agreed that businesses have not yet figured out how to utilize this opportunity, it is only a matter of time. “The best part about social sites is that you can create communities and continue conversations with customers and prospects� said Luther. But traditional advertising does not work on these sites; in fact it can backfire.

How does the average small company afford to move from traditional direct marketing to an integrated Internet plan? It practically pays for itself. Because Internet marketing is so quickly quantifiable, the results justify the expenditure. What’s more, as Feigenbaum underscored, you pay only for effective marketing when you utilize a pay-per-click approach. That makes online marketing an extremely affordable way to test multiple approaches; all you pay for is creative until the messages pull results. “We suggest our clients take a few dollars from PR, a little from marketing and at the end of the year, they have seen the results and they make a budget,� said Luthor. Staudt affirmed that “It’s no different than direct mail. You test. You define what works and then it gets easier.�

Above all, advised the panelists, rely on the consumers themselves to determine your direction. Today’s fluid interactive environment gives us immediate feedback on what they want.

Special thanks to CGSM for sponsoring this event. CGSM specializes in the strategy, design and production of direct marketing campaigns. www.cgsm.com

NEXT EVENT: Round Table session on April 9, featuring small-group discussions facilitated by experts on key DM topics. For more information please contact Amy Altmann at: aaltmann@boardroom.com.

Brian Kurtz lauded as “DMA Mensch�
Plus, scholarships awarded and new Board announced!

The Hudson Valley DMA celebrated a year of excellence in educational programming at their holiday party on December 7th at Fairview Country Club in Greenwich, CT. The event honored industry giant Brian Kurtz – recipient of the HVDMA Founders Award. The award is presented to an exceptional individual who has contributed to the professionalism of the direct marketing industry.

From his humble beginnings as a “list guy�, Kurtz spent over 26 years helping Boardroom, Inc. become an industry leader in newsletter and book publishing, in-house list management and state-of-the-art direct marketing. He is a trustee in the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation and a member of the DMA Ethics Operating Committee. He is passionate about mentoring and educating students and has taught at his alma mater, Rutgers University.

Introducing Kurtz, Joel Katz (of Leon Henry) remarked “to describe Brian, I googled the word mensch. It said, ‘Do you mean Brian Kurtz?’ Brian is a mensch in every sense of the word. A good person. A stand up guy.�

Accepting the award, Brian Kurtz reminded the audience just what “founders� actually means, quoting dictionary definitions such as “getting sick from overeating� and “becoming stuck in boggy ground�. His remarks epitomized the traits that have endeared Kurtz to so many in our industry: humility, humor and creativity.

Two $1500 Scholarships were presented to Mercy College students for excellence in education: Jagruti Ghaghda and John Mas, both members of Mercy’s graduate program in Direct Marketing.

New President and Board: Outgoing President John LaGreca (Federal Direct) was roasted and toasted, and new HVDMA President Lauretta Harris (Write Communications) was welcomed. Quoting Winston Churchill, Harris thanked the HVDMA for “thrusting greatness upon her.�

Quality education and support of the DM industry is the central mission of the Hudson Valley DMA. To this purpose, funds are raised at luncheon seminars and special events throughout the year, as well as the silent auction at the holiday party.

The next HVDMA event will be Meet the Internet Presidents on January 30, 2008.

This event was sponsored by Polaris Direct: a full-service print management and lettershop company specializing in high volume direct mailings for Fortune 500 companies and marketing agencies. For more information call 603.626.5800 or go to: www.polarisdirect.net.

Kelly Browning is a Washington insider when it comes to the sensitive politics of today’s direct marketing. Privacy issues, do-not-call lists, USPS pricing and policy – all are changing the way the industry can reach customers.

As a director of the DMA, Browning has lobbied extensively and successfully on behalf of the industry. He shared his unique perspective at the Hudson Valley DMA’s “Meet the Masters� session held October 3rd at the Fairview Country Club in Greenwich, CT.

The information every Direct Marketer needs to know was delivered in a relaxed, talk show format moderated by Martin Stein, President of RMI Direct Marketing. Stein posed compelling questions to Browning, his colleague and friend for over 25 years.

The question on everyone’s mind: What is the DMA doing to help enhance the image of our industry to the general public?

“Our strategic plan�, Browning explained, “has four basic components of concentration:

“The major focus this year being political representation – the DMA has always played defense, but the last three years we have been proactive rather than wait for emergencies. We didn’t handle sweeps, do not call and privacy as well as we could have. We need to focus on self-regulation going forward.

The other components include educational opportunities – we’ve made seminar improvements to train people to be better direct marketers; networking; and market research – an area where we need to do more.

We’ve also spent a lot of time with our PAC on both sides of the aisle so that we have better relationships in Congress.�

Those relationships, emphasized Browning, are what’s building a more positive attitude to direct marketing in Washington DC – particularly when legislators realize the number of jobs in their constituency that the industry provides.  He also cited the very real monetary contribution of our industry to the USPS. Without direct mail, “the USPS might have to cut back on services or delivery days to the general public.�

Browning challenged the HVDMA to invite local Congressmen and Senators, through the PAC, to come to a meeting and learn more about our business, the constituents we employee, and why direct marketing is good for America. “The more they get to know us and can put a face to the issue, the better it is for our industry.�

“Mail Moves America�, the DMA initiative to combat many Do Not Mail bills was a lively topic of discussion. Browning urged attendees to learn about this initiative, donate and support this effort.

Fielding questions from the audience, Browning addressed the issue of “Why isn’t the DMA advertising directly to the Consumer?� He related that last year the DMA spent over $1 million on direct advertising to the consumer to promote the DMA as “the good guys.� Stein caused appreciative laughter with the comment, “How lonely it is when you go home and find nothing in your mail box!�

Other measures being taken by the DMA to ensure consumer confidence, according to Browning, are requiring members to make monthly MPS updates, requiring an opt out on all acquisition pieces and using a trusted marketer seal to promote DMA members. “The DMA must promote our commitment to the consumer to be trusted marketers.�

Browning is also the EVP and COO of AICR, the American Institute of Cancer Research. He fielded several questions related to charitable marketing, and talked about innovations (such as a ridged outer envelope), that had provided incredible lift to response – 10-15% over a five-year period! He is also a believer in paying first class postage to cut through the clutter. He advised all mailers to “work on your overall brand awareness, work on your techniques, and test to increase your visibility in the mailbox.�

The meeting was presided over by John LaGreca of Federal Direct, President of the Hudson Valley DMA. Special thanks to Boardroom, Inc., for sponsoring this event.

NEXT EVENT: The  HVDMA Holiday party on December 7th. For more information please contact Amy Altmann at: aaltmann@boardroom.com.