Now we’ve all read a million times the Wanamaker quote “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” Over the years we’ve become much more adept at measuring (and in some cases overusing) the acronym ROI. So in present day you’d expect we’re a lot better than 50/50. It’s also safe to assume that were not at 100% either.

 The importance of measuring has naturally increased and so has the skill set of CMOs and VPs of marketing. What’s clear to me as I continue to interview and connect with the best marketers in the US is that anyone who has spent time in direct marketing has the “measuring thing” in their DNA. It’s not that others can’t or don’t do a great job on measuring ROI, it’s just that in every conversation with someone who is grounded in DM the first and ongoing thought is “how do we measure this”.

The other bonus about direct marketers is that in recent history direct often consumes the web and all the digital marketing efforts – no coincidence here, they do lend themselves to measurability.

Of course there are other considerations regarding experience and requirements for a position, and it’s often commented that direct marketers don’t have enough brand expertise. In some cases that’s correct, but when you combine a grounding in direct with someone who has developed into a marketing exec, snap them up-- they keep score.