research paper direct marketing

The Complete Guide to Direct Marketing

Direct Marketing: An International Journal

ISSN : 1750-5933

Article publication date: 12 June 2007

• Direct marketing
• Marketing communications
• Buyer‐seller relationships

Lewison, D. (2007), "The Complete Guide to Direct Marketing", Direct Marketing: An International Journal , Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 119-120. https://doi.org/10.1108/17505930710756888

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

The Complete Guide to Direct Marketing is subtitled “Creating breakthrough programs that really work”. Given the world‐wide emphasis being placed, by firms both large and small, on establishing custom relationships through a wide‐range of direct marketing tools, a comprehensive guide to developing successful direct marketing strategies and tactics is most timely. Unfortunately, while the book contains a wealth of information, in the end it fails to deliver on its promise to be a “complete guide”.

Taken as a whole, The Complete Guide is written and presented more in a traditional textbook format than as an applied guide which can be quickly and effectively used in the business world. Much of the content addresses topics which business people with any level of experience should be familiar with. The first part of the book (Chapters 1‐5) deal with very general topics (e.g. direct marketing as business strategy, direct marketing as sales, thinking like a direct marketer, barriers to success, etc.). This is not to diminish the importance of these topics, but the author does not provide any real down‐and‐dirty specifics. Perhaps the one strength is Chapter 4, which deals with specific examples of success that cross a variety of industries, and which delve into some lessons that are valuable and relevant in a number of scenarios and firm circumstances.

The second part of The Complete Guide (Chapters 6‐10) reads like a traditional promotion text with the term “direct marketing” used in place of “advertising”. In reading these chapters, I found very little information that cannot be found in virtually any marketing communication text. The discussions of finding an audience, the creative process, production, and testing really contained nothing new. Particularly frustrating was the chapter dealing with data management (Chapter 7). Anyone involved in direct marketing understands not only the importance of establishing a usable system for collecting analysable data; but they also realize that the ongoing success of any direct marketing efforts are dependent on the ability to “mine” that data. The majority of Chapter 7 is a discussion of simple terminology. The attempt at the end (14 rules for effective use of data) to provide a guide for data management and use falls woefully short with rules such as: “Decide what data you need, then figure out how to get it”, “Write reports first”, “Put your most experienced person in charge”, etc. is little more than a laundry list of what should be simple common sense.

Having been somewhat critical of The Complete Guide as a readily usable tool for business people seeking lessons that can be quickly implemented, it should be noted that the author chose to take on a monumental task in assembling a single volume that would be both comprehensive and direct. If the reader is actively involved in business and seeking to either create a new, or improve an existing, direct marketing program this is probably not the best book on the market. At the same time, if the reader has little or no business experience (especially in areas related to promotion) The Complete Guide to Direct Marketing may be a good place to start. It would also serve as a decent text for an introductory direct marketing course.

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The direct marketing-direct consumer gap: qualitative insights

2001, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal

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Digitalization and its impact on contemporary marketing strategies and practices

• Guest Editorial
• Published: 20 April 2022
• Volume 10 , pages 103–105, ( 2022 )

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• Tat-Huei Cham 1 ,
• Jun-Hwa Cheah 2 ,
• Mumtaz Ali Memon 3 ,
• Kim-Shyan Fam 4 &
• Józsa László 5  

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Since its inception, technology has transformed the way businesses operate and the consumption of goods and services. (Matarazzo et al. 2021 ; Sestino et al. 2020 ). For example, technology has revolutionized the way companies promote their products and services, perform their business activities, communicate/exchange information, and manage resources. On the consumer side, technology has significantly changed consumption patterns and empowered them to be part of the product acquisition process (Cham et al. 2020 , 2022 ; Cheah et al. 2022 ; Lim et al. 2022 ). In every aspect of business, the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, virtual reality, and robots have created a new paradigm shift and promoted innovation in the area of marketing research and practices (Grewal et al. 2020 ; Lim et al. 2020; Steinhoff and Palmatier 2021 ). Such transformation has become a marketing catalyst, perpetuating new marketing trends and archetypes in digital marketing and marketing analytics.

In recent years, the progression of digital marketing via social media has expanded beyond its original purpose as a platform for social networking. Instead, it has evolved into a platform that enables businesses to communicate with their customers almost instantly and be directly involved in developing marketing strategies (Cham et al. 2021 ; Iankova et al. 2019 ). Specifically in digital marketing, customers can collaborate with companies as co-creators in almost every aspect of the business process including product/service development, value creation, and marketing strategy development (Li et al. 2021 ; Olson et al. 2021 ). By incorporating user-generated content into digital marketing, consumers can assume the role of “broadcasters,” they no longer listen to the marketers, just like what happened in the past (Cham et al. 2022 ; Cheung et al. 2021 ). Undoubtedly, the benefits of digital marketing and the potential of high ROI have made this channel one of the marketers’ most preferred choices (digitalthirdcoast.com 2022 ).

In addition, the emphasis on digitization and data-driven practice among businesses nowadays has made marketing lean towards science-based and provides marketers unlimited access to valuable insights into their company performance, customers, and opportunities (Ritter and Pedersen, 2020 ). In essence, marketing analysis is seen as identifying patterns of data that help marketers in marketing decisions. With the availability of marketing and data analysis tools (e.g., Google Analytics, Phyton, Heap Analytics, Optimizely, Klipfolio, etc.), the importance of how data can explain market trends and better understand consumer preferences are clearly spelled out (Petrescu and Krishen 2020 ; Yu et al. 2019 ). More importantly, marketing analytics help businesses and marketers optimize their marketing campaigns, segment their market, and reduce costs associated with marketing activities, providing business organizations with a sustainable approach in the long term.

Despite particular research conducted on the issues related to digital marketing and marketing analytics, additional attention is needed to study the revolution and potentially disruptive nature of these domains (Petrescu and Krishen 2021 , 2022 ). Considering the substantial impact of digital marketing and marketing analytics in the current competitive and demanding business landscape, the special issue editors hope that this issue lays a foundation in the academic perspective of these domains. We would like to recommend that more research be conducted to challenge the existing status quo and raise awareness of these domains in the near future; especially in the contemporary environment that requires more than just the knowledge brought from traditional marketing. For instance, there is room to explore further how biological technology (i.e., facial recognition payment), livestreaming, virtual influencer, neuromarketing, blockchain technology, metaverse, gamification, and omnichannel platform could be used for the marketing and analytic purposes.

Lastly, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all the authors who have submitted their work to this special issue, “ Digitalization and Its Impact on Contemporary Marketing Strategies and Practices, ” of the Journal of Marketing Analytics, and we are grateful to all reviewers who have rendered their service and expertise to ensure the quality of the publications. We want to extend our appreciation to the editors, Anjala S. Krishen and Maria Petrescu, for their endless support and for entrusting us with this task.

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Tat-Huei Cham

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Cham, TH., Cheah, JH., Memon, M.A. et al. Digitalization and its impact on contemporary marketing strategies and practices. J Market Anal 10 , 103–105 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41270-022-00167-6

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The U.S. labor market can affect ‘people who are not even here,’ research finds

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A recently published paper co-authored by Brian Cadena finds deep connections between the U.S. and Mexican economies

That the job market in Phoenix can affect a child’s education in Mexico may strain credulity, but it’s nevertheless true, according to a recent  paper co-authored by Brian Cadena , a University of Colorado Boulder associate professor of economics.  

People from specific regions in Mexico tend to migrate to specific regions in the United States, and when U.S. work dries up in some areas, those migrants tend to return to Mexico, Cadena and his co-authors, María Esther Caballero of American University and Brian K. Kovak of Carnegie Mellon, found.

Their paper, published in the Journal of International Economics in November, explores the U.S. labor market’s influence on the lives of people in Mexico by comparing how neighboring Mexican counties, or “municipios,” fared during the Great Recession.

Brian Cadena, a CU Boulder associate professor of economics, and his research colleagues explore the U.S. labor market’s influence on the lives of people in Mexico by comparing how neighboring Mexican counties fared during the Great Recession.

To perform their analysis, Cadena, Caballero and Kovak drew upon data from the Matrícula Consular de Alta Seguridad (MCAS), a governmental organization that issues identity cards to Mexican migrants.

Unlike either the U.S. or Mexican census, MCAS provides in-depth, granular information on migrant workers, specifying the municipios they leave and where in the United States they settle.

MCAS is a treasure trove, says Cadena. But it wasn’t long ago that researchers didn’t know how to use it. Cadena, Caballero and Kovak changed that with another paper they published in 2018, which validated the MCAS data and thereby opened up a whole range of potential research.

“This identity-card data really allowed us to drill down and make tight comparisons between municipios,” says Cadena.  

The strength of networks

A key finding that emerged from the MCAS data is that people from the same municipio often move to the same cities and states in the United States. “People follow their networks,” says Cadena. And these networks are so strong that migrants from nearby municipios often end up hundreds of miles apart in the States.

Migrants from the municipio of Dolores Hidalgo, for example, tend to move to Texas, while those from nearby Jaral del Progreso generally relocate to Chicago, California and the Southwest. Same region in Mexico, different time zones in the United States.

The close proximity of the municipios is important for the kind of research Cadena, Caballero and Kovak are doing, Cadena explains, because it cuts down on confounding variables. Neighboring municipios experience the same weather, suffer the same droughts, follow the same or similar laws, etc., which means differences in their economic outcomes are likely due to something they don’t share—the job market in the cities and states where their migrants moved.

To unearth these differences, Cadena, Caballero and Kovak measured the job-market losses in the U.S. regions linked to each municipio and then compared the economic outcomes in the municipios connected to harder-hit regions to those connected to softer-hit regions.

As it happens, labor demand in Texas survived the Great Recession relatively unscathed, so the municipios of the migrants who ventured there remained stable. The American Southwest, however, suffered some major blows, and so the municipios connected to that region exhibited several changes.

(Un)expected observations

Some of those changes were unsurprising, says Cadena.

“One of the things we’re finding is how connected these two economies are," says CU Boulder researcher Brian Cadena of the United States and Mexico. On the one hand, the stark differences in what someone can earn and what the labor market looks like in one country as opposed to the other suggests that we have made the separation between those countries real and meaningful. On the other hand, we are certainly not islands.”

“When work dried up, more immigrants returned to Mexico, and fewer new immigrants came from that source community.” This then led to a fall in remittances, or money transfers from migrant workers to their families back in Mexico.  

Yet Cadena, Caballero and Kovak also observed some changes they didn’t expect. One was that more women joined the Mexican workforce.

“This is called the added worker effect,” says Cadena. “When the primary earner of a household”—in this case, the migrant laborer—“loses their job, it’s a common reaction by the household to say, ‘Let’s send someone else to work.’”

Another unexpected change was a drop in school retention. “We found some suggestive evidence that a loss of jobs in the United States reduced investment in schooling in Mexico. We saw more schooling dropout, especially at transition ages, when kids move from one level of schooling to the next,” says Cadena.

Blurred lines and better choices

What do these findings suggest about the perceived separation between these two countries and their economies?

It makes that separation “a little fuzzier,” says Cadena.

“One of the things we’re finding is how connected these two economies are. On the one hand, the stark differences in what someone can earn and what the labor market looks like in one country as opposed to the other suggests that we have made the separation between those countries real and meaningful. On the other hand, we are certainly not islands.”

Realizing this, Cadena believes, could inform policymaking, specifically regarding immigration.

“When we’re thinking about immigration policy—when we’re thinking about all these things that affect the low-wage labor market—we are making policy that has a real and noticeable effect on the lives of people who are not even here,” he says.

“I’m not a politician, but I think that a more holistic sense of all the impacts of the choices we make as a country could help us make better choices.”

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