What we like best about George Duncan's "Streetwise Direct Marketing" (Adams Media Corp., $19.95) is its subtitle: "How to Use the Internet, Direct Mail and Other Media to Generate Direct Sales."
The phrase not only neatly captures what direct marketing should be about, but also epitomizes truth in advertising.
Duncan, founder and president of Peter-borough, NH-based Duncan Direct Associates, has been involved with direct marketing for more than 16 years. He's worked with such DM greats as Sheldon Sachs, Richard Steeg, Leon Henry and Maxwell Sroge. He even won a Caples Award in 1978. Little wonder Pierre Passavant wrote the foreword.
The book started out as content on the author's Web site. When he realized how much interest there was in his essays on a number of direct marketing tricks and techniques, he created the "Streetwise" series.
A set of titles rather like IDG Books Worldwide Inc.'s "For Dummies" or Macmillan Publishing USA'S "Compete Idiot's Guides," "Streetwise" offers a crash course in topics that can increase a reader's competence. Unlike these other series, though, the brand has not extended itself into absurdity. Instead, it sticks to business-related volumes.
The format is delivered in a conversational, easy-to-read tone covering relevant issues. Callouts highlight key points, case studies illustrate how things are done (or not done), and checklists provide quick-start guides for businesses that have to do it themselves.
Duncan begins by explaining direct mail and the "dynamics of response" and goes on to describe how to put together a DM campaign. He lists the costs of such an effort, provides a guide ("Finding Your Way Through the Mailing List Swamp") and outlines the procedure of writing and designing packages.
Other chapters include catalogs, telemarketing and alternative media (here, called "alternative print media"--Leon Henry's preferred phrase). The final chapters detail marketing on the Internet and by e-mail.
Infomercials and DRTV are a curious omission--especially since the author favors referring to the industry as direct response (because, he says, this explains what the goal is, regardless of which media is used).
For readers who have a sense of marketing in general, "Streetwise Direct Marketing" could be an invaluable one-stop shop for how to launch a campaign of their own. For entry-level DMers, it might supplement--if not replace--in-house training.
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