A recent study on email marketing by Harte-Hanks revealed both good and bad news about consumer response to email marketing messages. On the one hand, average email open rates declined to 17% for 2010, down from a 26% average open rate in 2009.  However, the study indicates the drop may be due in part to more users accessing email via smart phones as well as changing patterns in downloadable email images.

Having a bad day?  Need a good chuckle.  Check out these commercials. Biz Markie’s is back and he’s got what you need. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3qK8gT5LLg A product you never knew you needed.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHTPAx9_g2s Red House Furniture forgets about orange, green, purple and brown people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnOyMSEWNTs...

A recent study by Forbes Insights in association with Coremetrics reveals customer retention is becoming a greater marketing priority. In fact, more than half (52%) of the marketing executives cited customer retention as the top priority, and 39% of those plan to dedicate the largest piece of their budgets in support of customer retention.

For this week’s blog post, we spoke with News 14 Carolina reporter Andrea Pacetti in Raleigh, NC, to get her top tips for securing TV media coverage. Prior to her current gig, Andrea launched the network’s Coastal newsroom, acting as bureau chief and Morehead City’s first reporter.

It is certainly easy to continue to beat your chest and tell your customers and prospects how amazing you are, what contracts you won, what awards you won and how much your customers love you. But typically this type of communication is only good in moderation.