Wordrider: 19 Things All Successful Direct Marketing Companies Know

Malcolm Gladwell wrote that the honor of being "the father of contemporary persuasion...belongs...to the wizard of direct marketing, Lester Wunderman."

Wunderman...established himself as the genius...of the small but significant details that turn a shopper into a buyer. He was the person who first put bound- in subscription cards in magazines, who sold magazines on late-night television with an 800 number, who invented the forerunner of the scratch-'n'-sniff ad, who revolutionized the mail-order business, and who, in a thousand other ways, perfected the fine detail of true salesmanship.

....All these strategies amount to a marketing system of extraordinary sensitivity....sophisticated ways of listening, of overcoming the problems of distance and distortion which so handicap other forms of persuasion.

Marketers don't want to spin us. They want to hold us perfectly still, so they can figure out who we are, what we want, and how to reach us.

Lester Wunderman distilled his decades of experience and vision into a manifesto: a list of "19 Things All Successful Direct Marketing Companies Know" (from Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay):

Direct Marketing Is a Strategy, Not a Tactic
The Consumer, Not the Product, Must Be the Hero
Communicate with Each Customer or Prospect as an Audience of One
Answer the Question, "Why Should I?"
Advertising Must Change Behavior, Not Just Attitudes
The Next Steps: Profitable Advertising
Build the "Brand Experience"
Create Relationships
Know and Invest in Each Customer's Lifetime Value
"Suspects" Are Not "Prospects"
Media Is a Contact Strategy
Be Accessible to Your Customers
Encourage Interactive Dialogues
Learn the Missing "When?"
Create an Advertising Curriculum that Teaches as It Sells
Acquire Customers with the Intention to Loyalize Them
Loyalty Is a Continuity Program
Your Share of Loyal Customers, Not Your Share of Market, Creates Profits
You Are What You Know