Loyal customers are a marketer’s best source of new sales and referrals. That’s why smart marketers treat their best customers like gold, and why earning customer loyalty is the goal of every smart marketing strategy. Except at Toyota. Their recent direct mail campaign to a loyal Toyota customer broke many of the rules of effective direct marketing and harmed a 25-year customer relationship. Here’s why this campaign failed and what Toyota should have done instead.

Got a tight marketing budget? Here are 13 easy ways to promote your product or business without spending a lot of money. Some have more impact than others, but all are marketing tactics nearly anyone can deploy in a small-budget, smart marketing strategy.

If your sales team often complains about the leads they receive from your direct marketing campaigns – or if you’re frustrated with lackluster lead follow-up and low conversion rates – you may be unwittingly committing one of the seven deadly sins of direct marketing lead generation.

Here are the common mistakes business-to-business marketers make with direct marketing lead generation and tips on how to avoid them.