Farewell to InMarketing

We suppose we should be doing victory laps. The Direct Marketing Association is pulling the plug on InMarketing, its excuse for a monthly magazine.

Here’s two theories as to why.

The first is that John Greco took to heart the beating he took in the trade press last fall. The DMA chief was pilloried by Denny Hatch, Tad Clarke and yours truly.

Under this scenario, Greco waited a decent interval either to save face or to fulfill a contract with Pohly & Partners, the custom publisher that produced the tepid periodical, then got out.

Part of us hopes that’s true because it’s much more fun skewering John than being nice to him.

But there’s a larger point: The DMA shouldn’t be competing with its own members, and we’re sure that Greco heard that from people other than the outraged editors and publishers.

The other scenario is that Greco took a hard look at the publishing market and decided the DMA didn’t belong there.

If so, he’s right. The advertising base has been consolidating in the DM trade field, and there’s barely enough to go around for three titles, let alone four.

But it’s also consistent with some of Greco’s other actions