A Day in the Life of Direct Marketer

A Flexible Approach to Direct Mail

As a company or as an employee of a company doing a large mailing it doesn't matter how well, how fast, how efficient and how correct you may be at doing your job if the customer is not happy then you are not going to be happy.

Incidentally you may have noticed I made a point of mentioning what time I got in this morning. You are either thinking 'wow that's early' or if you're in the industry then the hours may be alarmingly familiar. Don't get me wrong, I am not begrudging the fact that some work days may span 12 or 14 hours. It is just important to highlight the fact that in this industry you have to be flexible, very flexible.

You can't change mailing deadlines, if the customer needs a mailing to go out on a certain date then it really does need to go out on that date. Meeting deadlines (even if they do seem to be impossible sometimes) is what is going to keep the customer happy. After all you may have a job to do but they have a job to do as well so you need to appreciate the whole process and not just your part in it.

I have been in direct marketing all my working life and have been involved in all of the different aspects of the industry from database development and programming to customer care to production. The thing that motivates me is that there is always a challenge whether it's a tight deadline or a technical issue with data or indeed researching equipment to invest in to complement our growing number of mailing machines and other devices.

I always like to talk to customers about what they want to achieve and on what budget. It is surprising what innovative solutions you can come up with after you have talked to a customer. Although the focus of many businesses may be monetary you cannot skimp on quality and accuracy otherwise you will just be wasting money rather than saving it.