Editorial: New ideas for DM's old hands

by Noelle McElhatton, Marketing Direct 01-Jan-08

It's an exciting moment for a magazine editor to be able to say their sector has reached a seminal juncture. And it's true of DM's evolution as a digital discipline.

Figures from client-agency intermediary the AAR (see page 4) provide some proof: 2007 saw a decline in DM briefs handled by AAR and a rise in the proportion of digital projects.

As the magazine for senior DM buyers in brand companies, Marketing Direct develops with its audience - a readership whose world is irrevocably changing. We've known for some time that the digital and direct marketing spaces are merging. Now we're recognising the knowledge gap created by this convergence with the introduction of Digital and Data Academies - two new sections focusing on the core skills of this integrated world.

Each month these sections will bring you the best thinkers in data and digital, as well as the secrets of the most digitally-advanced brands. Improved signposting will help you navigate through the magazine, but it's mission remains the same: to give you and your companies competitive advantage in an increasingly complex market.

We hope that you are informed and inspired by the new sections, which sit alongside established favourites like Critique and Special Report. Digital skills may be de rigeur for today's direct marketer but so too are the old skills of creativity, segmentation, targeting and, of course, the big idea. So while direct marketers may be the online immigrants having to learn the intricacies of digital, web natives must also embrace the tenets of traditional DM. Indeed, it's a moot point which side has more to teach the other: DM or digital.

You'll find it all here in these pages. We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Neither should you.

noelle.mcelhatton@haymarket.com.