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How Will Customized Search Affect Online Advertising?
Clinton Kicks Off 'Serious' Ad Campaign
DRTV Media Buyer
DRTV
DRTV and the Search Engines
Want to Reach More Buyers? A Multi-Media Advertising Approach is the Key
Time to use Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode?
Electronic Representment of NSF Transactions
A Serious Look at Electronic Checks as a Payment Option
How long do you want to live?
Selecting a Payment Processor
The Chargeback Process
Continuity Programs – The Ultimate Upsell?
Could DVR be a friend to DRTV marketers?
Making Waste In Our Haste: You Don’t Need to Break the Sound Barrier to Get Retailers to Notice Your Product
The chargeback process is a largely unknown to merchants and can often be a cause for frustration. Therefore, in order to shed some light on this subject let's take a look at the chargeback process used by Visa and MasterCard:
As you can see, there are multiple steps involving multiple parties, and each step requires the responsible party to dedicate a certain amount of time to its management. The resolution of a typical chargeback can take anywhere from six weeks to six months. If each party takes the maximum amount of time to complete a responsibility, it's not hard to see how a chargeback can seem to drag on forever.
Continuity is very attractive to the marketer when you figure that the cost of customer acquisition is tempered by the subsequent “free” orders generated by the continuity system.
There are 3 types of continuity programs:
The simplest is shipping the same item over and over again until the customer cancels. We refer to this as our "replenishment" system.
More complicated is the “Time Life” collection that starts with Volume 1 and continues on until the collection is complete (a good marketer never let’s on how many volumes there are until one has half a book case full and has not choice but to finish the collection).
Then there is the “variable” continuity where the end recipient can alter what’s being sent to them in midstream. For cosmetics one could be getting a lipstick every 3 months and might want to vary to the color-- or for nutriceuticals one could change the boost or add or delete an item to their program without canceling the original program.
The key on all these programs is the control they require to manage them without having a nightmare in customer service that boomerangs into returns / refunds / better business bureau letters and the like.. Thoroughly investigate your capabilities on the back end before venturing to quickly into this. It’s pretty easy to start it but quite another to administer.
More than half the television viewers using DVR (digital video recorders) fast-forward through the commercials when playing back the programs, research tells us. That’s probably not a revelation to most marketers, but claiming this is a benefit to DRTV (direct response television) advertisers may be a bit of a shock.
Consider the following. Most of those recording a show are not available to see it live, but they do want to watch it later. Many record their favorite show(s) just in case they are not home or can’t watch the program for some other reason. So, the actual numbers of those not being exposed to commercials is not known. However, it is safe to assume that the overwhelming majority would choose to view most programs in real time if they could – commercials and all.
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Confident manufacturers sometimes foolishly rush to market with products that could sell much better if they were launched a little slower.
We’ve all been there. You have a great idea that you’ve turned into a product that’s blistering to be sold. You’ve rushed the manufacturer, air freighted cargo across great distances, spun out miles of marketing and sales materials, and alerted everyone that the derrick is about to burst. You can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s shining a golden path to your retirement.
Yes… “We’ve” all been there. “We,” the ones that now know better, that is!
I suppose it is only human nature to want to get everything done as soon as possible so that we can find time to do more. We sometimes thrive on productivity. As members of today’s fast-paced society, we strive to do things quickly. I sometimes wonder why, and then I see a Fed Ex truck go by and it all begins to make sense. We have an innate propensity towards positioning ourselves to be successful so that we can demonstrate to others that we’ve accomplished more than they have. However, more often than not, we are simply making waste in our haste.
Ironically, we can actually be more successful by doing less and doing it slower. Certainly there are fewer mistakes and less waste if things are done at a more measured pace, or at least with better planning. Unfortunately, it is very hard to demonstrate this reasoning to someone with a new product.
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American Inventor is an exciting new ABC primetime reality TV show from Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol.
Set to premiere in early 2006, American Inventor will undertake the biggest search ever for the nation’s best new invention. An embodiment of the ultimate American dream, the show will uncover the hottest new product and make a struggling inventor's dream come true. It will celebrate the best in homespun American ingenuity, and turn one person's idea into the next big thing. Or so the ABC.com web site says
Despite the network’s boasts, will American Inventor be “primetime reality” or just another Hollywood scripted show fabricated by marketing hype and wannabe actors, like its American Idol predecessor? Hopefully, ABC will attempt to keep it real and not engineer it in such a way that it is out of touch with true inventors.
Cowell’s claims to the creative conceptualizing of the program are suspicious. The original idea for the show was, in fact, registered with the Writers Guild of America and pitched to an NBC producer by the parent company of this magazine. Cowell maintains that he had a vision for the show while driving in his car. But hey… You can’t fight players as successful as ABC or Simon Cowell so we won’t go there. Since it is a show that promotes inventions and gives recognition to them we must bite our tongues and happily play along. Perhaps Cowell will appreciate our vigor and toss us a bone someday!
But will the show, as they have claimed, make an inventor’s dream come true? Or will it simply make an actor’s dream come true? We hope for the first scenario of course and we’re pretty sure the show’s consumer audience will agree. The last thing we need is for the glory of inventing to be made a mockery of in the name of profits for ABC and Simon Cowell. And that’s not because we dislike Cowell. We actually like him a lot. After all, he is an accomplished and deserving inventor in his own right.
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The current advertising model is not going to hold up forever based on declining ad viewership trends. The future of advertisng seems to be heading towards: 1) A convergence of TV watching and the web, where conumers will be able to order directly off their TV by clicking icons. 2) A blurring of the lines between advertising and TV programming.3)Consumers having geater control over access to programming and commericals through the use of PVR's (personal video recorders like TiVo).
Peter Koeppel is Founder and President of Koeppel Direct
Acquiring Bank/ Merchant Bank
The financial institution that conducts business with merchants who accept credit cards. The bank buys the merchant's sales slips and credits the monetary value to the merchant accounts.
Card Not Present/ Manual Entry
Credit card information that is manually keyed-in through a computer or terminal keypad as opposed to being swiped though a terminal.
Cardholder
An individual who has opened a credit card account to make purchases and obtain cash advances.
Chargeback
A reversal against a sale that was credited to the merchant's account. Chargebacks are usually the result of an error made by the card holder's bank, a misunderstanding by the customer, or fraud. The merchant must provide proof that the goods and services in question were provided to the customer.
Discount Rate
A fee charged by the bank for processing credit card transactions. The fee is based on a small percentage of the merchant's total sales volume.
ISO
An independent sales organization that is registered through Visa and MasterCard to set up credit card merchant accounts. ISOs represent banks or third party processors.
MOTO
Stands for mail order/telephone order. Typically, businesses that conduct credit card transactions over the phone or by mail are considered to be riskier than retail businesses that swipe credit cards.
Reserve
in the event of charge backs from customers, processors may hold a percentage of your sales for a specified period of time. For example a processor may hold 15% of sales for 6 months. If there are no disputed sales in that time period, you will be paid the withheld money.
Retrieval Request
A request from a cardholder's bank for information about a charge which is being disputed. Retrieval requests usually precede a chargeback.
Third-Party Processor
A company that processes credit card transactions and distributes funds. Many banks choose to outsource credit card processing to third party processors instead of handling it in-house.
Direct response media buyers can help you target your audience more efficiently through the expertise that comes from years of experience testing various products. They could tell you, for example, than an ad for a pet-care product running on a network such as Animal Planet during particular time periods on certain days is certain to perform well because they have an extensive database of information to that effect.
Peter Koeppel is Founder and President of Koeppel Direct
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