Ventas Central Challenges DMA’s Study into Direct Marketing’s Emerging Trend

Ventas Central queries the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) claim that “direct marketing is shifting from response to engagement.” The North London sales and marketing company believes that the need for return on investment in marketing is becoming ever more prominent.

The claim was announced at the launch event for the shortlist of the 2013 DMA awards on the 22nd October. The statement was made by the DMA Awards host Mark Runacus based on the content of the award's entries, which revealed a swing towards engagement based marketing. Marketers, according to the DMA, are “replacing traditional brand-building activities with pure direct engagement activity.” Additionally, a US study by the CMO Council reveals that 61% of marketing agencies are re-allocating budgets from direct response to branding initiatives. Ventas Central accepts the popularity of engagement media, but questions the wisdom of abandoning results-based marketing.

Direct response marketing is designed to gain an instant response from consumers, enabling consumer response and purchase to be attributed to individual promotions or adverts. Direct response forms of marketing can include mail order, TV adverts or ‘infomercials’ that involve directly contacting the supplier, certain online adverts, and face-to-face sales and promotions, which show consumer interest and purchasing decisions immediately. Engagement marketing is designed to encourage consumer participation in the brand and its evolution, with the aim to build strong relationships between the brand and consumers. Social media and viral marketing are examples of engagement marketing. Ventas Central MD Josh Peace says: “I agree that engagement with consumers is important and that it is largely what direct marketing is all about, however to suggest that response rate and producing real results are less important is difficult to believe.”

Ventas Central proposes that the popularity of engagement marketing may be overlooking the need for results-driven campaigns. The Fournaise Marketing Group 2013 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program reveals that 78% of CEOs have lost faith in marketers’ ability to deliver performance driven results, an increase of 8% on last year’s report. 76% of CEOs also felt that marketing agencies talked too much about creativity and were unable to demonstrate a quantifiable impact that their work has made on business results. 72% said that agencies were less driven by science and data than they had previously expected.

Ventas Central MD Josh Peace believes that there needs to be a balance between engagement and response-driven marketing. “We understand that brand engagement is an important part of creating brand image and loyalty; however marketers must not forget that clients hire them to increase their profits. Response-driven marketing is essential to determining a campaign’s effectiveness and should be a key component of any marketing strategy.”

Ventas Central is an outsourced sales and marketing company which specialises in face to face client representation. The firm prides itself on its strong ROI achieved through results-driven campaigns.

Sources:
http://www.dma.org.uk/news/“direct-shifting-response-engagement-and-replacing-traditional-brandbuilding-campaigns”-2013

http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/television/61-of-marketers-moving-online-dollars-from-direct-response-to-brand-advertising-28830/

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/78-of-ceos-say-agencies-are-not-roi-driven/4007318.article