Direct Marketing

What is Direct Marketing?
There are two main definitional characteristics which distinguish it from other types of marketing. The first is that it attempts to send its messages directly to consumers, without the use of intervening media. This involves commercial communication (direct mail, e-mail, and telemarketing) with consumers or businesses, usually unsolicited. The second characteristic is that it is focused on driving a specific "call-to-action." This aspect of direct marketing involves an emphasis on track able, measurable positive (but not negative) responses from consumers (known simply as "response" in the industry) regardless of medium.

Direct marketing addresses some of the biggest challenges in marketing a business - lead generation, converting those leads into high quality customers, and then systematically growing customer profitability. Marketing experts estimate that your prospects and customers are bombarded with more than 3000 marketing messages (direct mail, email marketing, radio/TV advertising, billboards) – every day. Direct marketing helps you get through the ‘marketing noise’, and delivers a high return on investment for your marketing spend.
With prospects being presented with so many choices, they seldom, if ever, buy at the first contact. In fact, it can take anything from 9 to 15 contacts before they have sufficient trust in you to finally buy your product.
Little wonder that so many entrepreneurs and sales people hate cold calling as the chances of early success are dismally low.
An alternative to the pain of cold calling is a consistent set of processes that attracts qualified leads to your business, and then keeps them ‘in the loop’ until they convert into customers.
Systematic Direct Marketing is that set of processes - a marketing strategy based on direct marketing methods which will deliver an immediate and sustainable sales improvement.
By improvements we mean:
•your lead generation costs will drop,
•converting leads into sales will not be due to profit-killing price discounts, and
•your quality clients will form enduring relationships - providing you with profitable repeat sales
The Highly Effective Cycle of Systematic Direct Marketing
In order to attract, retain and nurture a list of highly profitable customers, you need to craft your direct marketing strategy around a number of marketing activities that can start in a fairly simple way, but over time develop into a fairly sophisticated set of direct marketing processes.
If you cycle through the following direct marketing activities you will experience an unprecedented improvement in your business’s results:
Each direct marketing cycle will create a set of clients who can start providing you with referrals. These ‘lowest cost’ prospects will supplement the prospects that you attract through your normal ongoing lead generation techniques, yielding an ever-increasing prospect base for you to convert into customers.

Benefits and Pitfalls in Direct Marketing
Direct marketing is known for an effective marketing strategy for many reasons
1. Direct marketing is very effective if you want a way to connect and interact with your prospective clients during your sales and marketing cycle. It helps you establish a direct relationship with your target customers.
2. Direct marketing allows your postcard printing pieces, for example, to generate awareness of your business among your target clients.
3. Direct marketing allows you to build a qualified and potential database for your business.
4. It helps your business to encourage recognition and loyalty, as well as trust from your prospective customers because direct marketing allows you to develop an effective and responsive feedback system.
5. It also helps you gather concrete information that can provide you evidence of the effectiveness of your marketing medium, such as your postcard printing project.
6. And because you actually connect with your prospective clients promptly, your direct marketing campaign (e.g. postcard printing) generates excitement over your products and services. It encourages your potential clients to value your business in terms of providing solutions to their unique individual needs. And your marketing campaign doesn’t have to include discounts or price cuts; your direct marketing campaign helps your target readers to simply see the value of having your kind of business in their lives.
Most of all, your direct marketing campaign helps you generate leads and manage them as well. More than getting sales leads for your business, maintaining your current database also needs constant work and effort. An effective direct marketing starts with a stable database. You need a solid system to manage all your new leads, as well as your loyal ones
Direct marketing does have some negative aspects, however. Many people are unaware of how the personal information they include on an order form or survey may be used for targeted advertising later. One prevailing philosophy in direct mailing circles is the idea that if a customer orders a swimsuit from a clothing catalog, he or she might naturally be interested in swimming pool supplies or exercise equipment as well. This could lead to direct marketing overload, as potential customers and clients become overwhelmed with catalogs, unsolicited emails and unwanted phone calls. There is also the concern that personal information collected by legitimate direct marketing agencies could be purchased by unscrupulous or shady companies for the express purpose of fraud.