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DMReview: The Persuadables Versus The Do-Not-Disturbs and the Pursuit Of Predicting Customer Impact
In 1872 Aaron Montgomery Ward produced his first catalog and launched the modern era of direct marketing. One hundred thirty-six years later, many direct marketers still rely on Ward’s traditional model to promote their products and services despite the many facets of the unknown that exists with this approach. That’s not to say that direct marketing hasn’t gained sophistication through the years, because it has. Marketers have moved from blanket mailings to using increasingly sophisticated post-campaign analysis to understand which contacts lead to purchases. However, it has long been recognized that not all purchases from customers are a direct result of marketing outreach and therefore are not necessarily a true incremental purchase, i.e., some of the people contacted would have purchased anyway.
