The Pitch: Redefining direct marketing while making friends at cocktail parties

You know when you go to a cocktail party and people ask what you do for a living, well in my case the next question is usually "and what is direct marketing?"

My definition is "a database-driven, one-to-one marketing structure", but say that and watch people's eyes glaze over.

People have a very simplistic view of DM - and that is direct mail.

Unfortunately, for many years that view was shared by brand marketers who didn't understand that DM is a way of doing business, not a one-off campaign.

Happily those days have all but gone and DM is integrated into most organisations' marketing strategy. But there's still the 'D' - many businesses say they "don't do direct marketing", but then admit they do have an active marketing database, that they know who their best customers are, and that they design communications for different parts of that database. Well hello?

Just last week I received an email from a Canadian colleague, who had recently heard the "father of DM" Lester Wunderman talk in New York. He had this to say: "The word 'direct' had a lot of meaning to marketers in the 70s and 80s but is almost meaningless now.

"We have to move on to think of ourselves in a broader marketing context and to figure out the right descriptor. but it certainly isn't 'direct'."

Recently I spoke to Alan Mitchell, author and marketing writer, former editor of the UK's Marketing magazine and marketing correspondent for the Times.

I asked him to define marketing in the modern global context. His answer was refreshingly different.

He said "Marketing is all about matching and connecting". What he meant was that today's marketers must first of all listen to what their customers are telling them, understand the customers' wants and needs and then tailor products or services to cater for those needs.

It's a "pull" rather than "push" philosophy of yesterday. And that's where database-driven, one-to-one marketing plays a key role because we can record preferences and purchases to ensure we talk to people about products and services that are meaningful to them, not us.

So: listen, match, connect.

I'm not suggesting that brand advertising and broadcast media have no place in the mix. But with our customer hats on, we're all becoming more adept at using the internet to fulfil our own requirements.

This is two-way communication, driven by the customer and here's where broadcast media have a real challenge. They have to become more interactive or begin to lose their share of the advertising spend.

So where did I start? "What is direct marketing; what is marketing?"

I think they're one and the same - totally integrated and focused on connecting with customers.

* Keith Norris, chief executive, Direct Marketing Association (DMA)

* The Pitch is a forum for enthusiasts of marketing and communications - send contributions to business@nzherald.co.nz