It’s frequently misunderstood, and sometimes not even made room for. Yet it’s the medium that could make an ambivalent consumer feel like the only, and most special, person in a room filled with hungry pockets. And that’s got to count for something.
Direct marketing is a form of advertising often vilified by consumers thanks to its association with pesky telemarketing calls, or to unsolicited junk mail. But to Nassib Boueiri, managing director of Wunderman in Dubai (the agency whose founder, Lester Wunderman, is credited with being the creator of modern-day direct marketing), it’s all about an engaging one-to-one communication with the consumer, with a call to action attached to it.
“In a nutshell, you contact the right people with the right product, hoping that they will react to the message that you’ve sent,” he says.
Akram Raffoul, board director of Jacobsons Direct, a specialist direct marketing company in Dubai, explains that while direct marketing used to be restricted to any one single channel of communication such as postal mail or telephone marketing in the past, it has now evolved into a more full-bodied medium.
“Nowadays it consists of an integrated collection of these, in addition to out-of-home media, text messaging, electronic mailing, and other web-enabled interaction channels that enable real time engagement between two parties,” says Raffoul. “Today, it is more correct when we speak about integrated marketing and communications.”
According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), direct marketing in the US accounts for 53 percent of all advertising spend, and drives fully 10 percent of the country’s GDP. That’s a stunning figure, particularly when contrasted with the Middle East’s sparse use of the medium. Both Raffoul and Boueiri agree that direct marketing remains a discipline in its infancy in the region, one with various hurdles to overcome before proving to be viable.
“Is direct marketing happening in the region?” asks Boueiri. “Yes and no. Yes on certain products and with certain brands, yes with certain companies, yes within certain categories, but not consistently across all, and not continuously.
“A loyalty program is considered one of the key elements in a direct marketing approach, and I think Emirates’ Skywards program is one of the most successful in the region. The rewards are very incentivising, such as the miles, the frequency, the redemptions, etc. The whole mechanism is easy to work out, and at the same time, they trigger a response so they lock you in, by upgrading you or moving you.”
Raffoul agrees that direct marketing in the region has achieved success with sophisticated frequent flyer programs, automotive relationship marketing programs, hospitality retention programs, and retail retention programs. But he also believes the industry is under-resourced. “Find out how many universities in the Middle East dispense courses of direct or relationship or integrated marketing and communications, and how many of them graduate students in any one discipline in comparison with advertising,” says Raffoul. “I suppose you know: none.”
The problems stretch beyond education, though, and for those who are proficient in the discipline there remain challenges. Boueiri says the main area of difficulty is data, or lack thereof, which ties in to the relevance of the marketing communicated through the medium.
MEAT OF THE MATTER. “For example, if you are a vegetarian, and you receive a mail from someone selling meat, it is pointless and you will throw it away,” explains Boueiri. “You are not targeting the right person. A key element of direct marketing is the data itself, the one used to target the customer. You can’t just buy or rent a list with 50 names on it, send brochures and say this is direct marketing. It’s a whole process, by which you first need to identify the target, the product you want to sell, and what you want to communicate. It also has to be sustainable and maintained; direct marketing is not a one-off thing. It can be quarterly or bi-annually, or even monthly, but it has to make sense depending on what you are trying to do or trying to sell. If my offers are relevant to you, you might not visit us the first or second time, but eventually you’ll be there.”
Boueiri uses the example of a supermarket that receives new products every month or every week, and wants to promote its produce to its consumers. “I cannot send you something every day to tell you about our new products, because I’d be invading your privacy and I’d become irrelevant, but at the same time, I cannot ignore you for a year, otherwise you’ll forget about me,” he explains. “There are occasions like Christmas, your birthday, a particular fruit or vegetable season.”
Boueiri stresses that a lot of regional agencies – the ones who are prepared to entertain direct marketing in the first place – do not have proper data, in the sense that they might have a name but no phone number, or a phone number but no name, or no email address.
And of course the lack of a postal system in the GCC also affects the effectiveness of direct marketing, but Boueiri says that shouldn’t hinder the use of the medium. “The lack of an addressing system affects marketing a lot,” he explains. “But when I have data, at least I can maximise it.”
In the face of these regional challenges, marketers must maximise what details they have. Agencies should aim to gather as much precise information as they can, including phone numbers, email addresses, P.O.Box numbers, and physical addresses wherever possible. “This has to be done now, in the absence of a postal system,” says Boueiri.
While Raffoul says the UAE leads the pack in terms of believers, accountable practitioners and investments in direct marketing compared to other regional countries, earlier this year, the DMA launched the Arab Direct Marketing Association (ADMA). Headed by Youssef Hamidaddin in Saudi Arabia, the overall objective of the ADMA is to have a regional body that can work on the development of the industry across all the Arab countries and focus on its growth, the odds are with direct marketing becoming a more vastly used medium.
Hamidaddin says Saudi Arabia was chosen as the headquarters of the ADMA because of the size of its economy, and of the market itself. He adds that Saudi Arabia’s committed investment in laying the infrastructure of postal services has also given it an edge over other neighbouring countries. “The addressing system is now ready, and it was a major investment made by the Saudi post and the government, so that set a benchmark for countries in the region.”
GOING POSTAL. The location of the ADMA headquarters may also have something to do with the fact that the international body that represents all postal operators – Universal Postal Union – has a direct mail advisory board, and Saudi Arabia currently holds the title of chairman of that board for the next four years.
Hamidaddin stresses the importance of postal services, yet he says direct marketing is not only an offline communication medium. “The offline component of direct marketing is a strong stimulus to the overall industry and does require a good level of attention, but that is not to say that the ADMA will only serve the interest of creating a market for direct marketing that addresses offline, [it will] also address online and digital communication.”
Direct marketing is slowly but surely gaining momentum in a region that has often overlooked the medium. At a time when return on investment is more closely watched than ever, Raffoul says direct marketing is a relevant and trackable medium which should be used more efficiently, and more often. “As mentioned previously, direct marketing is usually the fruit of an integration of tasks,” he says. “Well-researched and up-to-date profiles of the subjects targeted by this communication, relevant expression of a proposition, ergonomic format, out of the box creativity, good timing, and overall format relevant to the target audience.
“Good direct marketing is one whose ROI can be precisely measured and where communicators are accountable for their actions or commendable for their successes.”