Business: Direct Advertising. Secret: All acquisition channels decline over time, due to audience fatigue and increased competition as people realize a channel

Business: Direct Advertising. Secret: All acquisition channels decline over time, due to audience fatigue and increased competition as people realize a channel as positive ROI. You can combat this with fresh creative but it only slows the slide. Secret 2: All of the marketing psychology stuff, Edward Bernay's "propzganda", etc., is not really used by direct marketers. A handful of things are useful "tricks" (risk reversal, urgency, etc.) but marketing is not a handful of magic spells. The creative itself is half about telling people your Unique Value Proposition, and half empathy for your customer. Empathy is the root of all expert creative. Secret 3: The trick of direct marketing is not persuading people, it's getting in front of people who already want what you have and making it easy for them to get it.