Columnist Ian Hughes says good service – which used to mark out a good company from a bad one – is now a dying art.
As I write this, the front page of USA Today announces something that I told you, my loyal readers, nearly six years ago – that supermarkets are beginning to trust [...]

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Columnist Ian Hughes fears that marketing practices he believes are unethical will ultimately damage the industry.
Direct marketing is looking at its greatest ever threat: new, obtrusive ways of using the medium in order to get to consumers. They are simply wrong.
Let’s be clear – they aren’t per se illegal, but that’s just because legislation hasn’t caught [...]

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Columnist Ian Hughes rants about the latest issues affecting our industry. This time, he debates whether businesses should befriend social media and says: Elephants are not social, either!
Back in 2000, I remember giving lectures about the fact that businesses need to  get on to the Internet. ‘If you don’t, you will die,’ was my rough [...]

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At last, we have come of age, at last the DM industry can hold its head up and say: “We  have arrived!”. 
Why?  
Because we have been fined. Over the last few weeks, the biggest international direct marketing fine ever handed out by a regulator quietly surfaced and then disappeared.
The fine, $500,000,000, was not levied against [...]

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Columnist Ian Hughes discusses issues affecting our industry.
 
Nothing irritates me more than being ‘data raped’. You have a nice, cosy relationship with someone and before you know it they are using any information they have gleaned from you to stick it to you.
Imagine the scenario: I go in to buy a car, a used car. The [...]

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Columnist Ian Hughes regularly rants about issues affecting our industry. This time he discusses: Coming of age and going public during DM’s digital era.
Decades from now, people will look back and say: “2012 was the year when everything changed.” I say this with a very clear sense that I will be proved right.
Google is talking about issuing [...]

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Ian Hughes explains why he won’t be buying the Wall Street Journal any time soon.
A plain white envelope sits on my desk. The only copy on the front of it says PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL – TO BE OPENED BY ADDRESSEE ONLY.  
What do you think when you see such a letter?  
Tax demand? 
Lawyer’s letter? 
Invoice?  
Something [...]

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Columnist Ian Hughes rants about the latest issues affecting our industry. This time, he asks: SEO what?
I have recently been looking at SEO, Search Engine Optimisation – a friend of mine has set up a website (www.Child-Nutrition.Us) and I have been trying to work out ways to improve its ranking.
As I go through the process, I [...]

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Ian Hughes checks out the latest location-based social networkers’ service, which allows members to see where friends are ‘checked in’.
If you want to sell your property you need to have the three Ls: Location. Location. Location.
It would now seem the same is true of direct marketing. Over the last few months there has been a [...]

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Columnist Ian Hughes rants about the latest issues affecting our industry. This time, his topic is: Facebook – friend, foe or flop?
There are few people who do not know about the existence of Facebook – and people are either sweet or sour about it. But Facebook can also be a place to do business as [...]

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