Remember that old saw about the marketing director who noted that half his advertising was working: “I just don’t know which half”?

Well, welcome to the new, new world of marketing. Today’s corporate leaders are fixated on the bottom line and increasingly fond of asking themselves (and their marketing teams) what they are getting in return for every marketing dollar spent. Return on Investment (ROI) has become paramount in all marketing efforts.

With the increasing fragmentation of media consumption, how can any of us continue to justify spending extraordinary amounts of money in traditional media, and still demonstrate a positive ROI?

This is a great question if you’re a direct marketer. Why? Because direct is the one channel that consistently demonstrates return. Good or bad, direct puts its statistics right up front and lets a business know what it gained for what it spent.

It’s been that way since the very first direct mail campaigns. Sure, there are new ways of reaching consumers now – you try their mailbox AND their inbox – and the presentation has become more sophisticated. But deep down, direct marketing now is what it was at the start: a cost-efficient way to get a response and be able to measure it.

Yes, the world is different, but not that much different; consumers have always been demanding, regulations hard to deal with … and the need to generate results is still paramount.

Direct is the definitive in a world of maybes. It is the one marketing discipline that demonstrably does what it says it does, and more.

So as you allocate marketing dollars, remember: When it comes down to it, the primary reason that direct marketing works is that it delivers measurable ROI, and that, thankfully, is as important as ever.