As long as response rates are high and sales are strong, direct marketers can continue to thumb their collective noses at the IMC concept. Response and retention rates are declining, however, and the traditional direct-marketing principles are no longer enough to guarantee success. Now is the time for direct marketers to begin taking the IMC concept seriously and to apply some of the principles of traditional general marketing and marketing communication engineering. One of the first problems with which direct marketers need to grapple is competition in the marketplace. General marketers define their objectives in terms of market share, a competitive concept, and plan their strategies to improve their share position.
Market share is an alien concept to most direct marketers.
Related competitive concepts, such as share of voice, frequency of exposure, clutter, and wearout are also foreign notions. Yet the problem of declining response rates almost certainly has to be attributable to the increasing competition and clutter in the mailbox. The answer is in doing real market research, administering questionnaires to samples of households and taking full advantage of the new analytical techniques. Testing offers and lists is not enough anymore. A mail consumer panel, for example, could provide the direct marketer with invaluable insight into the competition, including what the competitive product offerings, pricing, and promotion are.