A Career in Direct Marketing
There have been many attempts to define direct marketing in order to encompass the many diverse and ceaselessly growing activities undertaken in the field. The IDM (Institute of Direct Marketing) itself continually revises its own definition, currently: "Direct Marketing produces or uses data from interactions with customers or prospects in order to target marketing activity, generate continuing business and maintain control over market expenditure.
In short, direct marketing is driven by data, involving a one-to-one relationship between individual and marketing organisation that can be controlled by either party at each stage of a campaign. Which is why other terms like database marketing, customer relationship/loyalty marketing and dialogue marketing are often synonymously.
Above all, direct marketing is measurable. Whether you're using emails, mail, phone calls or mobile phone text messages, you can monitor exactly what is sent, when it is sent and the response rates that result.
Technology and Marketing
Direct marketing is not a new discipline, but because it developed alongside technology, many of the media and methods that it uses are 'state-of-the-art'. As the PC matured into a high capacity, multi-function tool, direct marketers were able to build ever more complex databases, campaign strategies and measurement tools. The two have always worked side by side as direct marketers continue to take full advantage of technology's growing capabilities to deliver ever more tested, targeted and effective campaigns.
The Opportunity Ahead
Because of this, direct marketers are genuinely poised to power the second wave and true Internet boom, because they possess the majority of the skills required. But just like the technology upon which they work, those skills are in an environment of constant flux.
Less than four years ago, Internet take-up worldwide was limited and email use at work and home virtually non-existent. Yet in the last couple of years the Internet and email have become staple elements of business and marketing communications. So direct marketers have had to learn fast - which techniques apply on-line, which need to be adapted, and which have to be dispensed with altogether.
International Communications
Close behind the growth of the Internet comes the mobile channel. Europe is experiencing a huge growth in the use of mobile phones for personal communications through voice and text, and the mobile internet is in its early stages. Meanwhile, compatibility devices (such as Bluetooth) are being developed to allow all manner of technologies to communicate without wires. The opportunity this presents to creative direct marketer is limited only by the imagination.
Likewise, there is the opportunity presented by interactive television (iTV), yet another new technology able interact directly with consumers, presenting them with a seamless line between a television commercial and the transaction itself.
Established Channels Hold Strong
It's not just the new media that present direct marketers with challenges and opportunities. Established direct marketing techniques like direct mail and telemarketing are also on the up.
No technology will usurp direct mail's role in delivering physical goods - be they marketing materials or brought products. Since the Internet boom, the use of direct mail has risen exponentially. It is the preferred method used to drive new traffic and registered users to websites and the chief fulfilment method for goods ordered on-line.
Added to which, more and more companies are adding a telephone sales and service facility. Understanding how best to use customer data and sales techniques over the phone requires highly specialist knowledge, and presents yet more opportunity to the direct marketing professional.
An Integrated Approach
But none of these channels works in isolation, and most direct marketers work across more than one medium, managing integrated campaigns to deliver consistency across all media. At the core of this is the customer database, bringing together all customer and company information to ensure that whenever contact is made with or by a customer, there is no conflict. For example, were a customer to email a company through their website and then call the telephone contact centre to chase up their query, the operator on the other end of the line would be able to pull up the email and track any subsequent response.
Although it sounds simple in theory, in practice direct marketing is a complex operation. It requires logic and creativity in equal measure and graduates with a qualification in the subject will without doubt have had a head start.
Study in the UK
There are many universities in the UK delivering courses wholly focused on direct marketing and with direct marketing modules. In addition, the IDM runs its own accredited professional qualifications. The IDM Certificate in Direct Marketing, The IDM Certificate in E-Marketing and The IDM Diploma in Direct and Interactive Marketing.
For postgraduates of all disciplines there are also the IDM Graduate Apprenticeship Programme, which combines work, industry placements and education over a two-year period.
For More Information
To find out more about studying direct marketing in the UK visit www.theidm.com
