Six Simple Steps to “Direct Marketing” Success When it comes to advertising for their company, business owners continually question the return on advertising. They use a sign on the door front, a phone book ad, and merchandise bags with their company's name and logo. Some will test radio, local television, and newspaper ads, but the real challenge is establishing a definition for marketing success. In recent statistics published by in the USPS Household Diary, 81% of households currently read or scan the direct mail that is sent to their home. In spite of this, I continually hear business owners saying, “I tried sending postcards or mailers to customers a few years ago, but I got no response. This means that direct marketing won’t work for me.” The bigger issue is that businesspeople need to link direct marketing activities to specific strategies and business objectives. They must ensure that the mail recipient is the proper target. In addition, successful campaigns can be mistaken for flops if there is no way to measure the response rate. The steps toward direct marketing success aren’t complicated, but they do need to be followed. It Starts with Strategy! Businesses of all sizes must have a succinct strategy in place relative to the target clients or prospects for products or services and the results they hope to achieve. Sometimes the Best Way to Grow Your Business is with Existing Customers (or those with Similar Characteristics) Your best prospects may be your current customers or people with the same demographic characteristics. If you have new product or service offerings, focus on that loyal base that already knows you well. Next, look through your customer data and profile your best clients. Where do they live? Which products or services to they purchase most often? By understanding the type of customer who buys from you the most, you can target other people in that same demographic. You can also map new offerings to your existing base to expand share of customer. Also remember the old “birds of a feather” concept—the friends of your existing customers are highly likely to have the same demographic traits. Rewarding existing customers for referrals is a strategy that frequently pays off. Synergistic Use of Media There is no single right answer for media selection. It depends on the relationship you have with your customer or prospect base. Depending on your customers, you may need to use direct mail pieces, Internet marketing, radio ads, newspaper coupons, or (most frequently) some combination thereof to reinforce the buying decision. It’s All About the Offer! An offer is what you are willing to give and what you want in exchange for a particular response from prospects. It may be a special premium, price, or guarantee. The offer strategy must be directly linked to the business objectives. The end point for the offer could be an increase in qualified leads, store traffic, or an actual transaction. Get a Response and Build a Relationship Good direct response advertising engages the recipient and encourages interaction. In direct mail, personalized URLs linked to custom landing pages, tokens and rub-offs, stamps, and quizzes all promote involvement. It must be easy and convenient for a prospect or customer to respond. Use as many vehicles as possible, including personalized URLs and Web interaction, toll-free phone numbers, prepaid reply envelopes, fax numbers, and e-mail. Measure, Measure, Measure! One of direct marketing's great benefits is that you can easily measure its effectiveness. With postcards, barcodes or promotion codes can be used to measure success. With personalized URLs, click-through rates can be monitored. Call center activity can be tracked. Referrals can be assessed by simply asking people, "How did you hear about us?" The more you can measure your campaign's effectiveness, the more you can improve. When used effectively, direct marketing can be a great tool in building customer relationships. Businesses can gather a great deal of information about their customers and prospective customers, enabling them to provide additional value through new products and services. Direct marketing can also help businesses in more precisely targeting prospective buyers. It can reduce costs (minimize overhead of retail space, utilities, etc.) while increasing the speed and efficiency of the operation. The bottom line is that direct marketing enables businesses of all sizes to customize offerings, create ongoing relationships directly with customers, preserve privacy, and constantly adjust to improve response rates. Content provided courtesy of InfoTrends |
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