It was none other than Jack Welch, the revolutionary GE CEO who suggested the watchwords that comprise our second resolution for direct marketers.  But if you think about it, it is direct marketers such as Beachbody, Guthy-Renker, and Murad who have not only relied on their expert supply chain partners to succeed, but who have also largely assumed responsibility for shaping their own destiny, that have succeeded in the long haul over the past two decades of tumult and change.

 The truth is, trying to figure out how to make a direct marketing campaign work effectively is tough work.  It requires uncommon perseverance and pluck – not to mention financial resources – and a willingness to test again and again.  But to make sound decisions, you need sound data on which to base those decisions and the fact is, the closer a marketer is to controlling that flow of data, the more they are in command of their fate.

 Here’s a simple illustration: if you’re not getting call count information at the switch level, then you most likely do not have a clear picture of your inbound call dispositions.  As a result, basic information such as total calls received that are used to calculate the effectiveness of your call centers, may be skewed by disparate definitions of what comprises an answered, short, incomplete, and no answer call, etc.  This information is fundamental to making decisions about the effectiveness of not only your call center, but of individual media airings.

 One solution to this conundrum is to use toll free numbers where you can get access to switch-level data.  With Dial 800’s RapidRecall bank of memorable toll free numbers, for example, you see all of your data at the switch level.  These telephone numbers can be deployed with any call center and you can move them from place to place.  Since you control the numbers, you also do not have to send out separate dubs to stations and networks if you decide to move from one call center to another.

 This is what we mean by controlling your fate.  If you’d like to read more, check out my article in Direct Avenue’s most recent Direct Connect Quarterly Newsletter, “Control Your Telemarketing Data to Control Your Fate.” At Dial 800 we are committed to giving marketers the tools they need to optimize their campaigns by obtaining insight that reveals the truth – truth that sows the path to success.

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 By Scott “the Optimizer” Richards, CEO, Dial 800