Time to celebrate direct marketing

True engagement that leads to or develops an existing relationship with a consumer issomething that all direct marketers strive for and those campaigns that help foster such aconnection should be celebrated. That is why Marketing Week’s Engage Awards exists.

Russell Parsons

The 2011 bash will again celebrate innovation, activation and accountability across all marketing channels, among them, of course, direct marketing.

The Engage Awards 2011 will mark those campaigns launched in 2010. It is a year in which the UK economy crept diffidently but definitely out of recession but 12 months when UK plc remained “cautiously optimistic”.

Against this backdrop, direct marketing – with its age old attributes of targeting, respond rates and accountability had a good year. Recent studies such as the Bellwether Report and comments about the virtues of traditional media by WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell point to steady use of the channel by companies seeking to drive engagement, and ultimately brands.

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And let us not forget that fantastic tool of engagement, the direct mail pack and how the tactile nature of that medium can help develop lasting relationships in a way that other avenues are not yet quite able.

So, it is time to celebrate those campaigns that have demonstrated an understanding of customers existing and prospective. A moment to reflect on brand activity that has demonstrated an understanding of the market, in terms of industry and the economy, it operates in.

An opportunity, perhaps, to make a case for a campaign that demonstrated that traditional and new media can work hand in hand, not as foes in competition for a slice of the marketing budget, but as complementary elements in the marketing mix.

So, if you want to celebrate the part your direct marketing campaign played in bolstering engagement make sure you enter the 2011 awards.