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Byline: Brian Deagon
Four years ago, Minneapolis Star Tribune executives worried that some ad dollars were slipping away.
A few advertisers were shifting their spending into direct mail campaigns and away from the newspaper. So the Star Tribune launched its own direct marketing business.
"We started with nothing, but now we have the capability to profile customers and predict their behavior for our clients," said Michael Baum, the newspaper's director of direct marketing.
The unit's sales have been growing at 40% a year the last three years. Baum expects one corporate customer alone will spend $200,000 this year using the newspaper's customized marketing data to send out mailers promoting its home-improvement products.
"That's above and beyond what they'll spend on ads and inserts in our paper," he said.
Reducing Customer Turnover