Direct Marketing! What’s it all about?

You may have heard this term thrown around over the years, or you might have already actually incorporated the style into your own marketing efforts. Those who use it, tend to stand behind it, as it’s a form a marketing that really works if you let yourself wrap your head around it. It has been called by many as one of the most “efficient” forms of marketing. now, the emphasis of this site is of course “Inbound Marketing”, however many principles began with various forms of marketing such as DM (and in many ways cross-over)

Though for the purpose of this article, my aim is to list out the key points of what it is and why it’s important. It has been a form of marketing that many have already utilized and continue to utilize to provide the best “experience” and “need” for your customers.

First a few key directives:

Spam = annoying, old school, bothersome, could and “will” put off” potential customers

Wait! what do you mean….my mailing list may be in the 1000’s, but I “do” get “some response?

Yep, well a mailing list is part of it, but not the old school spammy way. The “send it and they will come” days are a thing of the past, and it’s definitely not the way of Direct Marketing.

Remember this simple 3 step directive:

DATA–> TO INSIGHT —>TO ACTION

So what is it?

Essentially it’s the practice of taking a product and trying to sell it to those who have an “interest” in what your selling. Say for instance a friend, or an associate. Better yet, those who trust you and appreciate your efforts in marketing them things that they have a need for. It’s educating your customer, so that they can make the right decisions. It’s educating them on why “what” you have, is what they are looking for”. In short it is a form of “customer relationship management“.

So how does this all work?

You’ll hear the term “database” often. A trusted / professionally scrutinized database is key to your efforts. Sometimes if you are starting from scratch or trying to up your Intel, then it is recommended that you A/B test at least 3 main elements of your campaigns to fine tune your data.

What are those?
1- Pricing
2- Your Offer
3- Your opening statement (or headline)

This is accomplished by mailing out your offer in 3 separate variations to see which of the 3 produce a better response and better ROI. This can be tested more than once to fine tune your results data.

Results!
You can actually measure the data, refine it and repeat! This is how master marketers get the right info and the right products into the hands of those who desire or need it.

Forms of Direct marketing:
1- mailing (direct mail)
2- email
3- tweets
4- postings

Takeaway:

Whittle your list down to those who are most likely to take advantage of your offers. Once they do, track where they came from, who uses what, and what they use it for. This can be elaborated on by listing which zip codes tend to respond to your marketing efforts most. In other words your “demographics” and who you should target..how much did they spend.

Make sense?

Direct marketing can be a very professional and consistent form of advertising.

Make sure to check out my article on “10 Steps to Competent Direct Marketing“