To begin with, there are four fundamentals. Second, there's understanding of and reliance on the database and its role in effective personalized or targeted marketing and good customer relations. Fourth, there is the absolute necessity of establishing a relationship of trust and credibility by giving customers full value. Let's take them one at a time. Manufacturing is no longer viewed as driving the markets.
Customers drive the markets.
We're not selling products from production lines, but providing customers with what they want. Direct marketers have known that all along. Direct marketers were the salespeople who opened America's frontiers with accountable, measurable advertising combined with relationship building. These reps were among the first relationship builders. Shoe boxes and data cards gave way to computers and punch cards in the 1950s.