For decades, marketers believed that combining messages through many channels increased response rates. During my career, several tests proved that this strategy works most of the time.

For years, I've seen direct response TV advertisements that sell everything from vacuum cleaners and kitchen utensils to jewelry.

If you bought a lottery ticket but didn't scratch it, would you start spending your jackpot? Of course, you wouldn't -- you need to know whether or not you actually won something first.