The Technological Challenges to Traditional Direct Marketing
As the old Bob Dylan song goes, "The times they are a-changing.'' And that is certainly true in the field of traditional direct marketing. Most of the changes, and many of the challenges to the way we have always done direct marketing, can be traced specifically to changes in technology. Although technology has been good for, and to, the direct marketer, increasingly it is challenging many of the basic assumptions of how the business works, how direct marketing is done, and, most of all, whether traditional direct marketing, that is, the activities practiced by solo product mailers, book clubs, magazines, credit cards, and auto clubs, and in short, any and everyone who depends on continuing acquisition to build the business, can and will survive. Those are tough words. But these are tough times.
The power of technology, that is, the ability to capture, store, and manipulate massive amounts of data about customers, prospects, purchases, interests, affinities, and so on, would appear to be a boon to the direct marketer. To the database marketer,