From The MeritDirect Co-op: Amtower Preaches Carpe DM

Carpe DM? No, not carpe diem (seize the day): More a case of seize the definition. And a definition of DM is what Mark Amtower, the business-to-government guru who gave a luncheon presentation at last week’s MeritDirect Business Mailer’s Co-op, attempted to offer.

Rather than provide a simple dictionary definition, Amtower led his audience through an overview of the last 30 years of long-distance marketing. The 1980s, when direct mail was the undisputed champion channel, saw “a cacophony of catalogs,” as Amtower termed it.

But what a cacophony! Amid the noise were such gems as the Banana Republic catalog, which was printed on faux parchment and which feared stories about the featured merchandise. Or consider the Paper Direct catalog, which not only offered merchandise but provided business owners a printed forum in which to share operational tips.

Direct mail was simple. According to Amtower, all it took was a good offering mailed to the right list.

During the 1990s, direct mail evolved to direct marketing, Amtower said. Under direct marketing, successful companies added customer service and differentiation as necessities to the previous essentials of a good offering and the right list.

It was during the mid 1990s that CompUSA purchased PC Complete, a perfectly good catalog company, and changed the catalog’s name to CompUSA Direct.

“People thought they weren’t getting the right catalog or service,” Amtower said. “The catalog died after two issues.”

Some companies got differentiation and service right, however. In 1994, Viking Office Products’ Irwin Helford put his photograph on his catalogs and offered “Next day delivery, guaranteed.” (This was, Amtower noted, around the time government services and products supplier GTSI was boasting it had lowered its average delivery time from 30 to 23 days.)

What has happened to DM of late? During the first decade of the 21st Century, it morphed into database marketing.

“Information dissemination is changing,” Amtower said. Marketers have to be cognizant of how all channels work together and influence purchases And they have to understand not only their own product mixes, but how every member of a target audience will react to an offer, or a change in price, or any other variable.

The list of what it took [to be a successful marketer] had expanded again, Amtower said. It still included a good offering to the right list, along with differentiation and customer service. But now it required a database and adaptability.

Asked about the definition of DM in 2010 and beyond, Amtower initially offered “dweeb marketing,” in recognition of the Web’s role in purchase decisions. But another attendee, MCH’s director of marketing and product development Kirk Chritton, came up with “detail marketing”, “deep marketing”, and “discussion marketing”, all of which reflect social media’s increasing influence in sales.