From the editor: But, are we doing research on the right things?

✍ Scribed by Don E. Schultz

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1991
• Weight: 134 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0892-0591
• DOI: 10.1002/dir.4000050203

✦ Synopsis

From the Editor

But, Are We Doing Research on the Right Things?

The current focus in direct marketing is database and the approach is relationship marketing. There's little doubt that as the field becomes more sophisticated, as technology improves and the costs decrease, as we learn more and more about how to manipulate data and information, that direct marketing will increasingly emphasize the inherent values of building long-term relationships with customers through various direct marketing techniques. Already, we see a number of organizations who are well along this relationship marketing road.

In spite of general agreement that relationship marketing conducted throtlgh various forms and types of database capture, storage and manipulation, is likely the future of direct marketing, this is probably the single area about which we know the least. It also seems to be the area in which the least amount of research is being conducted either by the academic or professional communities.