It amazes professional direct marketers that large numbers of companies still do not understand the back-end of sales. Both sales and marketing executives or their companies do not fully understand their customers and how they prefer to do business once leads are generated.

Clients seek greater targeting capability with their media buys. But what do direct marketers look for when creating more accurate predictive modeling that generates more revenue, more profitably than past efforts?

When discussing testing with one of my respected fellow direct marketers, I mentioned that companies really hire direct marketing consultants to advise them of what to test

After nearly 16 years of off and on consulting, the requirements for having fun and making a little money in the process revolves around one's credibility as a consultant.

This is not mine, but rather a question posed by a marketing leader of other CMOs and marketing executives throughout the US who are MENG members.

Have you ever taken on a marketing project you just couldn't get your hands around because nobody was clear on the objective or even what questions to ask?

Email marketing continues to grow unabated despite the down economy. Companies use email for retention, acquisition, PR and BtoB lead generation.

The answer is partially "no" because today's branding advertising sells product harder than ever drawing closer to the direct marketing approach. Few clients allow their agencies to simply position the product.

It comes about innocently enough from general agencies and large advertisers whose dropping sales are forcing them into the new world (for them) of the direct response strategy.