Month: November 2005

_Don Lange is the Senior Vice President and a partner in the “Cornerstone Group of Companies”:http://www.cstonecanada.com. He was one of Cornerstone’s first employees and has seen the company grow from a 6 person operation to almost 300 full and part time staff over 8 business units. From the beginning, Don’s role has been to develop new businesses for Cornerstone based on providing existing clients with new direct response media opportunities. Don has started 4 of Cornerstone’s businesses as well as conceptualizing and developing Universe Canada(tm), the largest and most comprehensive consumer database in the country._
*One Degree: Cornerstone has a long and successful history of helping enable direct marketing in Canada. How is classic direct mail been impacted by the Internet?*
It’s an interesting question. On the one hand if someone were to invent direct mail today it would be revolutionary. And, direct mail is still a very strong channel in this country. On the other hand, the rising costs of production and postage coupled with smaller mailing lists has resulted in direct marketers looking for solutions to complement direct mail campaigns. For the most part, direct mailers are embracing the Internet as a channel that meets their requirements of measurability. Some categories have been faster to move. For example we have seen a reduction in business to business mailings steadily over the last 5 years. Most of these companies have invested in online media.
*One Degree: My gut says that smart direct marketers are making the move to search engine marketing – it fits their way of thinking perfectly. I hear that Cornerstone is about to get very active in search marketing – can you tell us a bit more about your plans?*