A recent article on businessstrata.com notes that direct marketing is the most effective way for small firms to promote themselves.

Recent findings have shown that companies across all sectors are cutting down on traditional advertising and allocating more money to direct marketing.

Even though direct marketing faces stiff competition from online marketing, it’s still an important tool when used correctly.

Direct marketing is a proven, tried and tested method. Consumers are accustomed to receiving a lot of direct mail through the post, especially from the big supermarkets, such as Tesco and Asda. If successful companies like these are using direct mail as part of their marketing strategy then it must be effective!

A well managed contact centre is both job-producing and job-protecting. According to TMCnet.com, in spite of the recent economic slowdown, contact centres are still growing at around 20-25% per year.

All contact centres are labour intensive, and have remained so in spite of many technological developments in the industry.

Two pieces of very interesting reading in the current issue of Precision Marketing caught our eye.

‘Time to can the spam and get personal’ takes a ‘warts and all’ look at ESPs - email service providers, who offer integrated marketing consultancy, rather than just acting as ‘postmen’.

‘Can data bureaux take flight?’ looks at the future of database bureaux, questioning if traditional bureaux can also provide creative marketing strategies.

There is untapped scope for integrating email campaigns into wider marketing promotions, author David Reed argues in his feature on email marketing, quoting Eclipse’s Pippa Turnbull as saying, “We frequently see stronger response rates from emails when they are executed in conjunction with direct mail activity.”

As December’s Database Marketing outlines, despite a rough ride over the years, telemarketing remains an extremely successfull channel when executed well.

Quoting Eclipse’s contact centre director James Le Roth extensively, Antony Begley runs through the arguments for and against in-house and outsourcing.

“Outsourcing can enable an organisation to extend the range and quality of its customer services. It can also give access to fresh areas of expertise,” said James.