The traditional definition of direct marketing has changed. The current reality is driven by an evolving marketing landscape where response, engagement, sales, and measurability have blurred the lines between direct marketing and general advertising. And neither is quite the same.
In today’s world, nearly all communications are direct – targeting a segment of consumers or businesses and attempting to generate a response or action that constitutes the first step in engagement with the advertiser. Approaching these communications today without true direct marketing discipline limits not only a consumer’s motivation to respond, but their options to make response.
Increasingly, response is no longer measured only in terms of leads or sales and associated costs. Measurement criteria now recognize that true engagement may take time. The first visit to a store or website, the first text response – each can be just as important as (even critical to) the first sale.
We don’t advocate abandoning the old disciplines to embrace the new media. But we need to rethink the ways we use each channel, how proven direct response techniques are applied in new ways (and new places!), what we want each communication effort to do, and how the parts now fit into a new overall communication strategy.
