How has direct marketing changed?

I remember when I first came to Dubai back in 2000…. something.  After leaving the island of smiles, otherwise know as Bahrain, I was excited to be in the hub of progressive marketing activity or so I thought...

Print and other forms of ‘traditional’ marketing were still dominant at that time (some could say they still are, but I’ll save that for another blog rant) but I was fortunate enough to join a forward thinking agency, in fact a direct marketing agency.  They had managed to secure a large FMCG company (which rhymed with beaver) and had convinced them that the best way to communicate with their consumers was through direct marketing, more specifically direct mail.  Consumer details were collected through various means including competitions and data was collected through dedicated websites or slips attached to the various products like tea, coffee, soups etc.  This information was then collated into a centralized database and so began early customer profiling, and more importantly direct marketing through mailing the consumers.  Now this may seem very basic, however at the time it was groundbreaking especially for this region, imagine knowing who your customers were and what they wanted to hear about and more importantly when!  It seems like old hat, talk to the right people at the right time, talk to the consumer who wants to listen, right?

Well, fast forward 15 years and where do we find ourselves now? You’d think everyone would have jumped on the direct marketing bandwagon, right?  hhmm, kind of. I guess we are not receiving direct mail through the post, I genuinely can't remember the last time I went to the post office even. Some companies have embraced the most ‘up to date’ form of direct marketing (in the eyes of the Middle East) but most folks are doing a bad job of it.  Without heading into the realms on inbound or content marketing lets look at EDM’s, I don't mean Electronic Dance Music I mean Electronic Direct Mailer.  I’ll give you an example of an email I received today ‘Save 70% of Exhibition Space at Gulf Traffic’ now not only did I receive this once, I received it twice! Without me stating the obvious I think you can all appreciate I have ZERO interest in exhibiting at Gulf traffic and in all honesty zero interest in attending it, not due to the quality of the show as I am sure it is incredibly useful for people in the traffic industry, not digital marketing!  I feel bad for picking on them but this is just an example of being ‘targeted’ by a company to receive information that has nothing to do with our day to day activity.