During the opening keynote at DMDays John Greco, president of The DMA, announced a new committee designed to help mentor his organization into a transformative era, bridging their legacy as a primary thought leader in direct mail into the new digital and multichannel world – iDirect.
Fundamentally, this is an incredibly interesting issue and worthy of commentary. What role does the industry establishment play in the current and future evolution of marketing?
The first dimension that comes to mind for me is the communication between online and offline constituents within a company. In this case The DMA has a superior chain of relationships with large brands, and their ability to influence direction is substantial. Time will tell how this will shake out.
My greatest impression is that the marketing world is neither digital nor direct… it’s both. The beauty of digital media channels is that they typically possess a deep level of addressability… a quicker, more accurate form of the same measurement that underlies traditional direct marketing principles.
Noted by industry icon, Stan Rapp, “iDirect Marketing is the new Direct Marketing empowered by interactive insights and multi-channel involvement brought to life with new digital technologies. It is a fresh approach to marketing directly, driven by a remarkable degree of innovation and information shared via the infinite internet and other digital media. It’s what’s missing today when you simply say “Direct Marketing” or “Interactive Marketing.”
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