A message from H. Robert Wientzen, President and CEO, Direct Marketing Association If I had to summarize everything I have learned during my marketing career, I would quote legendary businessman Sam Walton, who pointed out in his straightforward Arkansan way that “there is only one boss – the customer.”
This is true for all marketers – especially today, as the Web and other technologies put more information and control in buyers’ hands.
Today’s marketers must bow before the shrine of the customer. In dealing with customers and prospects – both online and offline – marketers must be vigilant to prove they are willing to try new techniques, to listen to the customer and to build ongoing relationships based on that knowledge.
After all, regardless of the marketing medium employed – from the most cutting-edge to the most traditional – and regardless of how great a product is perceived, or how strong a company’s brand, or how much money is spent on advertising and marketing, little matters if marketers don’t know their customers’ wants and fail to respond appropriately.
Adhering to that philosophy, the Direct Marketing Association must serve our customers: the 5,000 member organizations – for-profit and nonprofit – around the globe. Like any other business in the Information Age, The DMA must aggressively serve our customers – knowing, meeting and exceeding their needs. If we don’t, the association is not doing its job.
Throughout our 83-year history, the DMA has served its members effectively. We have always addressed the “traditional” needs – government relations, professional training, conferences, consumer education and public affairs.
But this industry is changing dramatically and at a rapid pace, and members’ needs and business interests have changed as well from what they were even five years ago, let alone since 1917.
To address these new needs, the DMA has expanded, adjusted and led the way into the new century. We don’t just want our members to survive, we insist that they thrive. And we work diligently to help members in this hypercompetitive, technology-driven, multichannel 21st century.
Therefore, we appreciate DIRECT shining its spotlight “Inside The DMA,” providing a look at key facets of the work the association is doing for our members during this time of change, which presents exciting new opportunities.
In the first speech I gave as the DMA’s president and CEO back in October 1996, I said I believed that if we “take our eyes off the needs of the customers, we have taken our eyes off our future.” After four years on the job, I am even more convinced that a committed customer focus is the key to the DMA’s future.
As the direct and interactive marketing industry journeys into the 21st century, I recommit to building on the association’s industry leadership to make this an even stronger, more responsive and more customer-focused DMA for all of our member organizations around the globe.
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