Category Archive: Interviews

“The only way to grow your business long-term is through this process of turning your customers into your sales force.”
- Fred Reichheld

Chuck Teller is Executive Director of CatalogChoice, a catalog do-not-mail service. In this podcast, Chuck discusses his organization and how it impacts cataloging.

Here’s a transcript and a podcast of an enjoyable conversation with multichannel expert Kevin Hillstrom.

It you work in the catalog industry, either as a mailer or a vendor, check out the American Catalog Mailer’s Association, and consider getting your company involved.

“Put a sign in every department, on the conference room wall, that says, ‘Would anybody tell a friend about this?’ It’s a magic question that raises the bar across the organization and development.” — Andy Sernowitz

Missy Park is the founder and CEO of Title Nine, a web/catalog/store retailer of women’s athletic gear. I spoke with Missy about risk, branding, and Title Nine’s transition to retail.

“Are people really responding to your marketing , or are they placing orders and your marketing had really nothing to do with it? That’s the critical issue.” — Jim Novo

Marty I. Eisenstein is a senior partner with Brann Isaacson, a law firm specializing in direct marketing law. Marty shared his thoughts on tax law, gift cards, and general legal best practices for online retailers.

I’m a Shop.org fan, and this post is an unabashed plug for the upcoming Strategy And Innovation conference in Orlando, January 22nd through January 24th.

“Will the web turn everyone into a direct marketer? My short answer is: everyone’s gonna try.” Paul Farris

Just before the holidays, Google’s Rick Klau spent some time chatting with me about RSS, online reputation monitoring, and recent changes to the Google search index algorithm.

I had the enjoyable chance to interview Steve Spangler about the importance of the customer experience, about company values, and about diet soda geysers.

I had the enjoyable opportunity to debate the future of pay-per-click with Steve Rubel, Edelman SVP, A-list blogger, and pay-per-click skeptic. Paul Dunay moderated.

Ken Leonard of Hacker Safe shares his thoughts on web security, vulnerability scanning, and security seals.

Bill Kaplan of FreshAddress talks about the future of email marketing, ECOA, misplacing $125,000 in cash, and hanging out with Kevin Spacey.

Robust on-site search is an essential component of a successful retail website. Site search apps, however, depend on good SKU-level attribute data. Mercado’s Kevin Lindsay discusses data quality and “searchandising.”

Ken Seiff, CEO of DietTelevision and former CEO of BlueFly, discusses online marketing, advertising, startup culture.

Yesterday Yahoo announced they are opening up the API to their new search platform (aka “Panama”). I caught up with Dan Boberg, Yahoo’s Managing Director of Sales Technology by phone yesterday to talk about this API announcement.

More from Avinash Kaushik on How Web Analysts Should Spend Their Day.

Celebros provides site search, navigation and merchandising solutions for e-commerce websites. Recently, we had a chance to interview Celebros CEO Michael Crandell about site search in the world of online retail.

Vintage Tub and Bath sells unique bathrooms fixtures online. We had the chance to interview Allan Dick, Vintage Tub’s Chief Marketing Officer & Senior Plumbing Evangelist, about his experience growing a web business from startup to a specialty category leader.

We recently had the enjoyable opportunity to interview web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik.

Chris Ray of Money Management International shares advice and learnings from MMI’s successful December ‘06 microsite, Regiftable.com.

Janie Downey, NEMOA’s new Executive Director, discusses NEMOA’s strategic direction, the printing and pager outlook — and munchkin costumes.

Diane Rinaldo, Yahoo Search Marketing’s Senior Director for Retail, describes the Panama launch and describes upcoming improvements including targeting, new ad formats, and new distribution options. Diane also offers advice for multichannel marketers.