Great Lesson for Marketers in “Great by Choice”

I’ve had the Jim Collins business classic “Good to Great” on my to-read list for a few years now, so when I heard Collins and co-author, Morten T. Hansen, came out with a sequel I read it instead. “Great by Choice” was both inspiring and surprising…with applicable lessons for marketers.

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Direct Marketing ROI Projected for 2008

To see the way the Direct Marketing Association is projecting things, we all ought to get into e-mail marketing as our primary method of communicating … fast!  I’m not so sure that’s really true, but the DMA did put out some interesting projections, recently, as reported in the Oct. 18 edition of PROMO Magazine.

In that report, the DMA projects return on investment for commercial e-mail to more than double the ROI of other direct marketing tactics in 2008.  The DMA states that for each dollar spent, commercial e-mail will return $47.65, with non-e-mail online marketing a distant second at $20.19.

Others on the list of select direct marketing tactics are:

  • Direct response newspaper ads, $16.86
  • Non-catalog direct mail, $15.60
  •  Telemarketing, $8.61

Pretty impressive.

Then, again, we need to cast a somewhat jaundiced eye at the report, given its origins.  Let’s face it; DMA has a vested interest in marketers jumping on the DM bandwagon.  At the same time, smart marketers realize that direct marketing’s dominant position in advertising spends is due to the simple fact that it works!

I think measurable marketers overall do a better job than branders in understanding relevancy from the target market (s) perspective and, in this day of over-communication, that approach resonates with busy people.

So, I put it out here for your review and discussion.  Where do you stand?  Please give me your thoughts.

Grant Johnson

Johnson Direct LLC

800-710-2750