The strategic value of direct marketing: Expanding its role within the company, Paper 2
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Dr Alan Tapp is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Bristol Business School. He has over 13 years’ experience in commercial and academic marketing positions. He is the author of the best-selling text ‘Principles of Direct and Database Marketing’, and has over 20 publications in the fields of direct marketing, branding, charity marketing and, latterly, sports marketing. He has advised and trained companies as diverse as The Royal Mail and Coventry City Football Club. His major current interests are the strategic underpinnings of e-commerce and sports marketing.
Abstract This is the second of a series of three papers. The first paper of this series criticised the lack of foundation in much current thinking about the strategic role of direct and database marketing. This paper outlines an alternative direction for the industry based on a new model for the role of marketing. Experienced commentators in the field of marketing have argued that it is time for a major re-think of the role of marketing departments and of marketing itself. Both Doyle1 and Piercy2 have commented on recent criticisms of marketing, arguing that while marketing is more important than ever, it is not being led by marketing departments. Rather, the delivery of customer value and customer satisfaction is the responsibility of operational divisions and customer service departments. In this paper, the author takes this framework and makes a case for a strategic role for customer database information as a way of facilitating the process of going to market. It is suggested that the current trend towards ‘knowledge management’ should be exploited by the database marketing profession to influence higher levels of corporate strategy.
Dr Alan Tapp Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QY. Tel: ⫹44 (0)117 344 3439; Fax: ⫹1 (0)117 344 2289; e-mail: Alan.Tapp@ uwe.ac.uk
INTRODUCTION The theme of this paper is the proposal that database marketers are under-selling themselves internally within the organisation. In spite of all that has been said and written about the importance of market orientation, customer focus and the need to be close to customers, large firms find that in practice these things are still difficult to do. Of course much has improved, for instance companies use multifunctional teams to improve cooperation between departments. But even world-class companies continue to demonstrate the difficulties of staying market driven rather than listening to
䉷 Henry Stewart Publications 1350-2328 (2002)
Vol. 9, 2, 105–112
changing market needs. The current difficulties of Marks & Spencer are a classic example: yet again a market leader, believing its position was unassailable, has been caught out by nimble competitors whose sense of what the market wanted was sharper. This paper begins with a look at how marketing departments have fallen somewhat short in their role as guardians of the process of going to market. To address this, a different focus for the marketing function is propos
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