Direct marketing is no longer about trying to reach every potential customer through the shotgun approach. In fact, the methodologies employed today revolve around pinpointing the highest potential buyer, retaining existing customers, bringing back former customers, and creating campaigns that will drive prospective clients to contact companies. This has led to the models of advertising known as personalized and multichannel marketing.

Personalized marketing does just what it suggests; it personalizes the advertisement to the consumer’s personality. This means either creating a dynamic message that can be customized to each individual or performing an extremely detailed market analysis and creating custom packages for each segment. Creating a personalized marketing campaign requires knowledge of each customer and the ability to them through methods such as email direct marketing campaigns.

In multichannel marketing, the focus is on being able to keep track of how customers are being contacted, through the traditional methods of direct mail and telemarketing, as well as newer methods, such as test message and email marketing. UK has even gone so far as to offer door-to-door marketing strategies to present a more personable experience. Managing the database necessary for tracking how customers are being contacted and matching customers to remove potential duplicates requires dedication and an attention to detail.

While many companies are growing to understand the need for each of these marketing models, there are still a number of stone age businesses that refuse to adapt. These companies are the same ones that send mass amounts of spam, junk mail, and cold call any available number they receive. Fortunately, these same businesses are being used as examples as the government levies fines for not scrubbing customer lists with the do not call and do not mail databases.

As direct marketing campaigns evolve, the requirement for companies to utilize a personal multichannel marketing model becomes more obvious, and the line between them is blurring. Contacting customers means more than sending a random mailer, or spamming a useless email, in the hope that one to two percent of your recipients will reply. Instead, it’s time to focus on showing your customers why they mean more to you than a minor purchase and how you can demonstrate an interest in their lives. Direct marketing has become the method with which all communication with potential consumers will be handled, and they won’t appreciate being treated like mindless clones.