Direct response advertising to potential customers can be very demanding to say the least. An online business pays for clicks and leads and then hope for the best–sales flowing in, but these expectations may not always turn into realities.

As a result, marketers switch back to the bottom and continue persist with old marketing techniques (no innovation, all bookish techniques that no longer benefit).

The second issue related to direct marketing is that you will be hiring a marketing professional that will put a heavy burden on your pocket and you may soon find out that the professional does not have the expertise to create a successful ad campaign, target the right market, and analyze results.

If that is not all, returns from direct marketing equate to losses for most marketers (it is a fact). In exceptional cases, direct marketing campaigns may deliver success, but that will be confined to a single digit even after spending a fortune. One of the other disadvantages associated with the direct form of marketing is that results are difficult to be measured. Unless you are offering incentives in the form of unique coupons or discounts that are actually availed by customers, there is no way to track the success of a direct ad campaign.

In short, it is best to go for ad in a local newspaper, magazine, or bill board if you do not have the budget to hire a experienced, successful, and professional marketing company.

Tough conditions are being faced by young homebuyers in a generation. They are required to borrow five times their income to take the second step on the property ladder.

Figures from Lloyds TSB revealed that homes are at their least affordable for second-time buyers than at any point in the last twenty five years.

The research found the so-called second steppers are finding it hard to attain their goal of starting families and upgrade to a larger and more expensive home.

Suren Thiru, housing economist at Lloyds, said: ‘The issue of second stepper affordability is a key one in trying get the housing market moving again.

‘The current difficulties in this segment of the market are restricting the supply of starter properties for first-time buyers as well as preventing many of those who need to move from doing so.’

The telecommunications authority of Pakistan has sent a letter to cell phone companies and ordered them to block text messages containing what it perceives to be obscenities, Anjum Nida Rahman, a spokeswoman for Telenor Pakistan.

The authority also sent a list of more than 1,500 English and Urdu words that were to be blocked.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

The order was part of the regulator’s attempt to block spam messages, said Rahman. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority refused to comment on the initiative.

Many of the words to be blocked were sexually explicit terms or swear words, according to a copy of the list obtained by The Associated Press.

It also included relatively mild terms like fart and idiot.

The reasons for blocking some words, including Jesus Christ, headlights and tampon, were less clear, raising questions about religious freedom and practicality. Any word could conceivably be part of a spam message.

The letter was dated Nov. 14 and gave cell phone companies seven days to implement the order.

An early compensation has been demanded from the Finance ministry by Petroleum minister Jaipal Reddy for PSU oil retailers who are selling fuel below costs and whose borrowings till September have touched a staggering Rs 130,000 crore because of under-recoveries.

Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd were facing a crisis situation as per a senior oil ministry official.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

The three firms had a combined borrowing of Rs 96,727 crore in the last fiscal.

“If their financial health deteriorates on account of the price under-recoveries, their ability to discharge their assigned task of supplying the entire country with petroleum products will suffer,” Reddy said.

The oil ministry official said, “The oil PSUs will soon find it difficult to get loans from Indian banks, let alone foreign banks. The companies were borrowing heavily to meet even working capital requirements as their selling price could not meet even operating expenses,” he said.

IOC’s debt-equity ratio as on March 31 stood at 0.95:1, that of BPCL at 1.35:1 and of HPCL at 1.99:1. This is likely to widen this fiscal with rising borrowings and is expected to put pressure on future investments in oil and gas exploration and petrochemical projects.

“They have an unprecedented level of borrowings of Rs 129,989 crore to meet the working capital and dollar requirements to pay for crude import,” the official said.

The Bank of America Corp has dismissed thirteen investment bankers in its industrials’ group and may cut more, according to Bloomberg on Tuesday.

The cut in industrials’ group that gives advice and funds to various industries from aerospace to mining and paper were not a part of the wider cost-cutting plan announced last week.

From news.yahoo.com:

Managing directors David Iwan and Egan Antill, who were with Merrill Lynch & Co before it was acquired by Bank of America in 2009, left earlier this month when the bank cut 3,500 jobs, Bloomberg said.

Bank of America was not available for comment outside business hours.

Last week, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said it would cut 30,000 jobs and reduce annual expenses by $5 billion, as it struggles with costs from its 2008 takeover of Countrywide Financial Corp and a nearly 50 percent drop in share price this year.

These findings were reported by Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the actions.

The Bank of America Corp shareholders not reelect the head of the company’s audit committee at the May 11 annual meeting, according to a shareholder advisory firm.

ISS Proxy Advisory Services said shareholders should vote against the re-election of Charles Rossotti to the board of the largest U.S. bank by assets.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

Institutional and individual shareholders often use the recommendations of advisory firms to help guide their voting decisions during corporate annual meetings.

ISS also recommended that shareholders vote in favor of seven of eight shareholder proposals on the proxy ballot. BofA’s board opposes all of the shareholder proposals.

ISS argued that Rossotti, a senior adviser at private equity firm Carlyle Group , is not a fully independent director because an immediate family member is a partner in a law firm BofA retains for legal services.

In a securities filing on Thursday, BofA said ISS recommended that shareholders elect Rossotti at last year’s annual meeting, even though his immediate family member held the same post and the relationship was disclosed in that year’s proxy statement.

The shareholder advisory firm recommended shareholders vote in favor of the 12 other directors standing for re-election.

Sir Martin Sorrell’s advertising giant WPP is on the brink of losing a marketing contract worth £281m as part of a massive shake-up by the consumer products giant Unilever.

Unilever spends a staggering £2.5bn advertising household favourites from Marmite to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream every year.

From Dailymail.co.uk:

But it has launched a review of the media planning and buying service offered by top agencies WPP (up 7.5p to 604p), Omnicom and Interpublic.

It is the latest change instigated by chief executive, Paul Polman, who has turned the business on its head since joining almost 12 months ago.

Sources say Unilever is close to announcing it is replacing WPP’s Mindshare agency for its crucial mainland China account.

The business is worth £281m in annual billing and arch rival Omnicom, through its media buying agency PHD, is understood to have clinched the deal.

Unilever is a top three client of WPP and the decision could cost it between £5m to £10m in fees.

Rupert Murdoch is expected to slash the £1.2billion annual marketing budget of BSkyB by upto a third, adding hundreds of millions of pounds to its profits at a stroke if he acquires the 61 per cent of BSkyB he does not own.

Spending of the broadcaster on marketing dwarfs that of other large companies.

From Dailymail.co.uk:

Rupert Murdoch is expected to slash BSkyB’s £1.2billion annual marketing budget by up to a third – adding hundreds of millions of pounds to its profits at a stroke if he acquires the 61 per cent of BSkyB he does not own.

One source said: ‘It makes BSkyB worth more like £12 a share rather than the 700p proposed by News Corp [where Murdoch is chairman]. BSkyB has been encouraged by News Corp to spend heavily to build its position.

But once this deal is done Rupert will say it can do the same with less and the savings will drop right to the bottom line.’ News Corp declined to comment.

Murdoch is expected by industry sources to cut the marketing budget as soon as he gains full control of the broadcaster.

The Economic Survey presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on 26 February 2011 underlined the need for making efforts to achieve a second green revolution in the country.

The food safety net for each and every of the over a billion citizens requires improved agriculture production and productivity in the form of a second green revolution.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

The survey points out that the country is likely to achieve a more production of wheat (81.47 million tonnes), pulses (16.51 million tonnes) and cotton (33.93 million bales of 170 kg each) this year in spite of drought in some States, cyclones, unseasonal and heavy rains and cold wave and frost condition in several parts.

Stressing on the development of infrastructure support in agriculture and allied sector, the survey said that the relative weak supply responses to price hike in agriculture commodities, specially food articles in recent brings into the focus the Central question of efficient supply management and more investment in agriculture and allied sectors with the right strategies, policies and intervention.

Pioneering efforts of agriculture scientists and farmers were able to achieve a breakthrough in the agriculture sector in the 1960s, according to the survey that also disclosed that there was need to achieve a second green revolution in the country now.

Perfection and success is dreamt by one and all but only a few get anywhere close to them. Stay close to name, fame, and recognition by getting and staying inspired with these inspirational quotes.

Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. – Lido Anthony Lee Lacocca

There are no foolish questions, and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions.  – Charles Proteus Steinmetz

If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.  – Abigail Van Buren

Yes, risk taking is inherently failure-prone.  Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking.  – Tim McMahon

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage–pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically–to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside. The enemy of the ‘best’ is often the ‘good.’ – Stephen Covey

The most important thing about a man is what he believes in the depth of his being. This is the thing that makes him what he is, The thing that organizes him and feeds him; the thing that keeps him going in the face of untoward circumstances; the thing that gives him resistance. – Hugh Stevenson Tigner

Curiosity is only vanity.  Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk.  We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.  – Blaise Pascal, Pensées

The one real object of education is to have a man in the condition of continually asking questions. - Bishop Mandell Creighton