Keith Wiser says everybody’s doing DM . . . they just don’t realise it.

I have just returned from a trip around the country under the auspices of a services organisation called the SETA
– a Service Education Training Authority. We have 27 SETAs in South Africa.

They are funded by government through a special levy and their purpose is to deliver training across a variety of horizontals within the country. The Services SETA mainly exists to meet the needs of marketers but it does also encompass hairdressers and undertakers. There is a rumour that the sex workers are trying to get in, but I cannot confirm this (I’d love to see the unit standards for their training requirements . . . but that’s a different discussion).
My presentation was titled  ‘Marketing Metrics, Systems and Processes’ which, of course, led to a fair amount of what we as direct marketers do.

At all the venues, when I got to this particular part of the programme, I asked the question: “How many of you here today are involved in any way with direct marketing?” Across four different groups, the average response was around ten per cent. Probably what you might expect.

When I rephrased the question, a different picture emerged. The new question was: “How many of you have a website? How many of you send out SMSs or emails on a regular basis?” Not surprisingly, the response went up from ten per cent to 100 per cent. And so – much like comic actor Marty Feldman when he materialised in the TV programme ‘Not the 9 o’çlock News’, as a Jewish vampire before a virgin Christian maiden – I said: “My Life, have I got news for you!” The reality is that if you are doing any of these things the chances are that you are starting to engage in direct marketing.

You may not be doing it very well, if you don’t even realise that these are direct marketing activities. But just because you are doing something badly doesn’t mean you are not doing it! To reinforce the point, I have never been very good at marriage . . . but this in no way detracts from the fact that I have had several marriages.
And that may be the scary bit. No, not my poor track record at marriage but the fact that all these people are starting to engage in the direct marketing space without realising it.

Why, you might ask, does this matter?

To me, it is self-evident that if you don’t know what you are doing there is a better than average chance that at best you will not do it well or at worst mess it up.

And then you’ll come to the conclusion that this new fangled stuff doesn’t work. At the same time, you may also upset a huge number of customers. This is analogous to teaching pigs to sing. Not only is it energy sapping, it also irritates the pig.

Doing it themselves
Maybe because I have always been somewhat challenged when it comes to jobs around the house, I tend to subscribe to the ‘If You Have A Burst Pipe Get A Plumber’ school of thought.

You’re feeling sick, you call the doctor.

You have a legal problem, you get a lawyer.

Your car won’t start, you call the AA.

You start direct marketing, you do it yourself . . .

So, what is wrong with us? The only point in mitigation might be, as I discovered this week – the majority don’t appreciate that they are doing it.

Just semantics?
There is a key point that we need to unpack from all of this. Based on my small sample of around 100 people in the past week, only ten per cent claim to be engaging in direct marketing. But 100 per cent see themselves as using marketing direct.

Is this just semantics? I think not. More and more (and for more and more you can read just about every) marketing activity today seeks a response. Ads say, ‘to find out more go the www.blahblahblag’. Emails state ‘for further information click here’. Sounds like direct marketing to me. 

And this is the conundrum. On the one hand, as direct marketers, we should be delighted that all these marketing novitiates are starting to explore our territory. Just in case you think I am terribly arrogant, I have to confess that some of them, with a bit of planning and innate cunning, may get it right.

On the other hand, based on the Great Universal Principle that you don’t know what you don’t know, the odds are not in their favour for optimal results.

Whether we like to admit it or not, direct marketing still comes with a lot of baggage. Terms like ‘spray and pray’ and ‘junk mail’ will not go away easily. I have a number of clients whom I studiously avoid telling that they are doing direct marketing, for fear, if they found out, that they might stop!

All aboard the bus
But here’s a thought I articulated in the foreword to my recent book, the mass marketing bus has already built up a head of steam. Mass marketing, using mass media, has been steaming along since the middle of the last century. Little wonder that all those people on that bus have zero interest in someone left behind in the dirt, trying to convince them that they are on the  wrong bus.

But how about a new form of transport all together . . . one that’s cleaner, quicker, cheaper, faster. Now you’re talking! And that bus might just be called ‘marketing direct’.