Archives / June, 2008

Please, Keep Not Calling (Thank You!)

Please, Keep Not Calling (Thank You!) It’s been three years since the federal government passed one of its better pieces of legislation in recent memory, creating the Do Not Call Registry which is a free way of dramatically reducing junk phone solicitations.  At the time, registrations were set to expire every three years.  When I signed up my phone number, I stuck a note in my calendar for today (three years later) to renew my registration.  I was planning on blogging about it to remind the rest of the world, too. To my great surprise, when I went to the site today, I saw this note: Your registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call…

Driving Out of the Bubble

Driving Out of the Bubble It’s easy for those of us who live in the Internet bubble to confuse the words “startup” and “entrepreneur” with the word “technology.”  Every once in a while, I am struck by a fantastic entrepreneurial idea that’s low-tech or no-tech.  In the last few weeks, I’ve learned of two of them — oddly, very similar ideas.  They’re both going after the New York City black car limo market (all those car services that take business travelers to and from airports and meetings), which is a lucrative but kind of gritty business.  I’ve used black car services for 16 years now, and while I’ve found one that’s pretty good, they all have massive customer service problems…

Run, Brad, Run!

Run, Brad, Run! A few years ago we announced our support of a charity called the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis (see the post about it here and learn more about Accelerated Cure here).  While we have a strong culture of giving back to the community at Return Path and do that in several ways, we chose this charity as the main beneficiary of our corporate philanthropy efforts for three reasons: We wanted to support research into finding a cure for MS to honor and support one of our earliest colleagues, Sophie Miller Audette who was diagnosed with MS about 5 years ago (and is still going strong as one of our key sales directors!) – and since then,…

Poor Systems Integration Just Makes It Worse, Part II

Poor Systems Integration Just Makes It Worse, Part II In Part I, I talked about how sad/amazing it is that large companies don’t tie their systems together well in this day and age of flexible computing and 1:1 marketing. A recent research study that our consulting team conducted at Return Path points to more of the same as it relates to email marketing.  The two big findings were that: – 2/3 of companies in our survey don’t send an immediate welcome message to their new subscribers – 3/4 of companies in our survey don’t use personalization, even though most ask for personal data Appalling, right?  The full study, and a 12-minute webcast done by the study’s author, my colleague Bonnie…

Email Checklist

Email Checklist Seth Godin has a great checklist up this morning of things you should ask yourself before you hit “send” on an email.  It’s a mix of personal rules and business/marketing rules, and it has some pretty entertaining things in it.  Definitely worth a quick read.

Book Short: How, Now

Book Short: How, Now Every once in a while, I read a book that has me jump up and down saying “Yes! That’s so right!” How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything in Business (and in Life), by Dov Seidman, was one of those books.  But beyond just agreeing with the things Seidman says, the book had some really valuable examples and two killer frameworks, one around culture, and one around leadership. It’s a book about the way the world we now live in — a world of transparency and hyper-connectedness — is no longer about WHAT you do, but HOW you do it. It’s about how you can have a great brand and great advertising, but if your…