For those of you who have tested hundreds of direct mail packages across multiple industries. Have you ever noticed how often ugly packages outpull highly refined and attractive direct mail?

Marketers who spend their careers building brands go limp when it comes to analyze the ROI on their marketing efforts. The CEOs wonder at what appears to be a conspiracy in the profession.

Skillfully merging your direct mail (a traditional medium) with digital can mean the difference between failure and success.

A disturbing resistance to evaluating marketing spend based on sales results seems to be infecting social media and other channels related to new media.

Response rates represent only a part of your direct mail effectiveness.

I've seen reputable reports that branding or positioning advertising works and generally agree with their conclusions. The only problem is that irrefutable proof of this comes only with the scientific method.

We've heard the hackneyed phrases like: "He can't see the forest for the trees?" Or "Why can't he see the vision?" In my life's experiences hiring, managing and working with many types of individuals I've concluded that strategic vision is the ability to step back and look at the many possible futures coming out of key decisions. In other words, vision requires seeing the outcome without the benefit of all of the information. Strategists create outcomes based on what dominoes to push to make things happen the way they want they to. The key point -- strategic vision must make decisions before the facts occur. This naturally requires imagination, visualizing key activities and selecting those activities that lead to the desired outcome.

Other than the product itself, no single component in your direct response mail or email mix comes close to rivaling the importance of the mailing list. If you go to poorly selected names consisting of individuals who do not need your product, can't afford it or care little about it, then the best offer or creative execution in the world will not make the program successful.

Nothing baffles me more than seeing clients refuse to test their direct mail creative work, offers and mailing lists. It borders on stupidity. After testing several thousand direct mail packages during my long career in this business, clients refues to test when they could improve their response rates by 200-600% with smart testing.