Marketing Communications

OBJECTIVES AND TARGET GROUPS 425

Martin Hayward, former Director of Strategy and Futures at Dunnhumby UK, formulated it

as follows in his report ‘Marketing Communications towards 2020: Looking for meaning in

a land of plenty’:

This new and plentiful data and insight is important because it is transforming the timescale

and analysis of marketing communications to the extent that in reality, all marketing is

becoming direct marketing. It will take the industry a little while to get over this – many

marketers have still not come to terms with the new reality – that their actions will lead to

rapidly measurable responses that will often need to be acted upon equally rapidly. Direct

marketing has always been seen as the rather unglamorous tactical cousin of the real busi-

ness of marketing, but the reality today is that all marketers will now need to embrace the

targeting, measurement and rapid response skills pioneered in this discipline. There is no

shame in knowing who you want to talk to, getting the right message efficiently to them and

accurately measuring the result.^9

Erik Van Vooren, Chairman of the Direct Marketing Institute, sees the following challenges

for the direct marketing marketers. First, one-to-one communications have a new meaning.

Previously, a marketer was the ‘one’ who could control the message that was sent to the other

‘one’, the consumer. Today this model has completely altered. Now the consumer is as much

the ‘one’ that sends the message, and, due to the leverage of social media, the message is

received in seconds by ‘many’ others. The marketers have lost control of the communications

flow and need to become real conversation managers. Secondly, customer data are changing.

Initially, databases were no more than directories where some criteria were added. Later

came the customer relationship marketing (CRM) solutions with the promise to have a 360°

view of the relationship with the customer. Because the various data systems were not linked

to each other or because the discipline did not keep the systems up to date, many of these

projects failed. Social media, however, have dynamic databases. These are maintained by the

customer in real time and have a content that covers the social and professional lives of

consumers. Static databases are completely out of date. Finally, customer loyalty is put under

pressure. Good customer service and high customer satisfaction are no longer a guarantee

of customer loyalty. Companies may invest in great efforts to improve basic services; the

customers’ expectations rise much faster.^10

Objectives and target groups

Direct marketing may be the appropriate communications tool for different purposes.

Direct sales

Direct marketing communications may be used as a direct sales channel or distribution

technique: selling products and services without face-to-face contact with intermediaries

(salespeople, dealers or retailers). The best example is the mail order business. Catalogues are

mailed to prospects and orders are taken by phone or by mail. With the increased Internet

usage, fixed and mobile broadband penetration, and innovations in easy online payment

systems, online shopping has now been largely adopted. A large number of retailers are using

more than one retailing format. Multi-channel marketing is the new growth strategy among

retailers to enhance their sales volume. The Internet and catalogues are used simultaneously.

Retailers are employing several marketing strategies, including in-store catalogue kiosks,

online catalogues, e-mail promotions, sales associate referrals and sales circulars to reach

more customers. Subsequently, the emergence of e-marketing initiatives such as e-mailing

have augmented sales in the mail order industry.^11

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