From the Practitioner. Rags to Riches

Horatio Alger, Jr. would love the Direct Marketing story! Horatio, as many of our younger readers may not know, was a prolific author of rags-to-riches books, penned at the turn of the last century, Far more uplifting, but no more expensive than the "forbidden" dime novels of the day, Alger's books all followed the same familiar theme: A poor, orphaned, neglected young lad was reduced to selling papers, shining shoes, sorting rags, or similar unrewarding drudgery just to get by. By dint of hard but honest work, he rose, by the time Alger reached THE END, to at least the status of a millionaire, gaining acceptance by and the respect of society and the reader on the way. Does this parallel the life story, over the past half ce9-tury, of the direct method of marketing? You bet it does, Fifty years ago advertisers and their advertising agencies invested heavily in mass advertising but treated mail very much as an orphan medium. Afew companies used direct mail advertising brilliantly and there were a number of significant mail order success stories, However, hardly any major advertising agencies had direct mail departments or paid much attention to the medium. Colleges and universities followed their example and Virtually ignored the subject. Direct marketing wasn't even identified as a marketing method. The virtues of direct mail/direct response/mail order were gradually recognized. It became clear that certain basic characteristics and techniques contributed to "direct's" success and that these methods could be used profitably with other media. Basically, the method consists of sending promotional messages through a medium to a careful selection of better-than-average prospects or customers so that individuals who receive the messages and respond can be identified by name, address, and other characteristics (the database and lists selected from it); the ability to tailor messages to the personal interests, needs, and wants of the recipients, and-certainly a vital factor-the ability to track and measure response and results. All this makes it possible to build accountability into marketing programs.