Epicurean magazine Saveur doubled its response rate by abandoning its courtesy voucher in favor of another marketing strategy: the magalog. There are a lot of offers in the magalog, from sweepstakes to discounts.

Bidart & Ross is proving how direct mail can easily fit into a marketing strategy by driving higher-level corporate prospects to a micro Web site. The investment advisory company began sending out thousands of postcards to HR and other executives late in 2007 and into this year in an effort to establish more contacts with 401 (k) plan sponsors.

City Harvest is showing that appearances really do matter by soliciting donations with a real brown paper bag as its envelope. A letter from the New York-based charity is headlined, “Most likely, having enough food to fill this lunch bag isn’t a problem for you. Not everybody is so lucky.” Few other tactics have worked as well for the group’s acquisitions strategy.

Subway Restaurants teamed with Database Marketing Group to offer a system-wide program that allows owners to go online, customize their mailings and mail any week they choose. The overall result: while the actual size of the mailings is smaller, the overall efficiency is significantly higher than that of larger mailings.

Timberland created the “Green Index,” which lists such information as the amount of energy consumed to manufacture a particular shoe, and shares the database with competitors to set a transparency standard for the shoe industry.

Companies should establish a company blog to help maintain dialog, rather than jump online only to respond to negative information, recommends Steven Solvers, principal at strategic consultancy GBSM Inc. and publisher of the blog Scatterbox.

Wal-Mart introduced a packaging scorecard for its more than 150,000 products to determine whether the company and its suppliers can conserve natural resources by reducing packaging and sourcing more sustainable materials.

Sixteen percent of Volvo Rents’ customers account for 89 percent of the company’s business. As a result, 89 percent of the marketing budget is devoted to that 16 percent.

Kodak began offering a high-quality printer that saves up to 50 percent on ink cartridge costs not long after it discovered that the cost of ink was the No. 1 consumer dissatisfaction with home printing.

One of the most common mistakes marketers make when trying to figure out how to reach Spanish-speaking newcomers is the assumption that there is a single Latino community, according to Veronica Torralba of insurer AIG American General.

Health care providers have learned that cheerful marketing ploys can also improve consumers’ attitudes toward medical care in general. But the humor must be relevant to a customer benefit, not just humor for humor’s sake.

One San Francisco retailer’s Web site steers customers to a national database where they can search for the closest recycle center that accepts their direct mail discards, like the retailer’s own glossy catalogs.

Tight demographic focus is key to developing a successful marketing persona. By aiming at a small group, you can make a relevant message, according to marketing firm McKee Wallwork Cleveland.

Marketers reaching out to small businesses should be ready to provide sophisticated problem solving, attention when it’s requested and rapid response, as Oce of North America did in a recent smart campaign, according to Jeff Baker, CEO of Image 4, a trade show display manufacturer and interior branding company, who responded favorably to a smart campaign by Oce of North America.

Subway Restaurants teamed with Database Marketing Group to offer a system-wide program that allows owners to go online, customize their mailings and mail any week they choose. The overall result: while the actual size of the mailings is smaller, the overall efficiency is significantly higher than that of larger mailings.

This year, the nonprofit Center for Resource Solutions substituted printed versions of its annual report with CD versions and used CD packaging that needed no glue.

Marketers need to be wary of exaggerating the extent or impact of their companies’ green initiatives, according to Lee Bodner, executive director of ecoAmerica, a nonprofit that is devoted to heightening public awareness of environmental issues.

Response rates for political direct mail, normally around one percent to two percent, are now climbing into double digits thanks to new technology, according to Aaron Grohs, executive vice-president at Consolidated Graphics.

Clothing retailer Mitchells/Richards/Marshs built a high-tech customer relationship management system that houses approximately 150,000 customer names.

A “chotchk” campaign by Jigsaw enjoyed a 10 percent conversion rate when blending e-mail with direct mail and telephone marketing. Using e-mail only, the campaign saw only a 0.5 percent conversion rate.