I do not believe direct marketing is going to conquer the world. Indeed, I would be extremely surprised if expenditure upon it exceeded that on general advertising by the end of the century. I have two reasons for this belief. I certainly hope not. To take these two reasons in turn, one of the great current problems in our industry, quite simply, is the poor calibre of much of our work.
Direct marketers loathe the idea of being seen as producers of junk mail.
Of course, the truth is if people think the mail we send out is junk, then there is not much we can do to alter that view or that expression, apart from improving the quality of that mail. Honesty Another thing we could do is to start being a little bit more honest with people. All over the world, customers dislike a lot of the ploys we make use of. They may not lose sleep over them, but they do get irritated. For instance, in a recent survey by the American Speciality Advertising Association International, it was revealed that 85 per cent of business managers had recently been contacted by somebody who told them they had won a valuable prize - as long as they agreed to buy something.