| Direct Marketing |
YU Bulletin is here with yet another Mass article on yet another Topic.
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| What is Direct Marketing? |
Few interpret this as Door to Door marketing or even face to face selling.
By its entire means, Direct Marketing means, in simple words, marketing your products/ services directly to the end customer and getting instant response on the activity undertaken.
Direct Marketing (DM) is predominantly used by Small to Medium Enterprises with limited Advertising Budgets which do not have a well recognized Brand Message. A well executed Direct Advertising campaign offers positive Return on Investment, as the message is not hidden with over complicated branding.
Let’s make it simpler...
DM is the practice of delivering promotional messages directly to potential customers on an individual basis as opposed to through a mass medium.
With any Mass media the company has a one way communication. While the appeal is mass, measurement is indirect with low response rate.
On contrary... It today's date; we receive several marketing phone calls from Insurance companies, Holiday clubs, Credit card companies, Builders, Event organisers and why not even for buying jewellery over the phone.
We receive brochures regarding attractive offers on property, clothing, electronics, newly opened food courts, malls, and even Hospital.
That’s not all.... We get several marketing cold SMS and even follow up SMS reminders.
Here it's the company / institution that's reaching their target audience directly with the exact communication material. Customer responses on these activities are instantly measured and non time consuming.
This aspect of direct marketing involves an emphasis on trackable, measurable, positive responses from consumers (known simply as "response" in the industry) regardless of medium.
Direct Marketing is not a Technology... It is a Process
The communication itself may be in any of a variety of formats including
Direct Mailers / Postal mail
E-mail Marketing
SMS Marketing / Mobile Marketing
Telemarketing
With any of the above Customer response should be measurable: for example, the marketer should be able to determine whether or not his promotional offer is favored by the customer. |
Direct Mailers / Postal Mail |
This is one of the traditional channels of marketing that dates back to the era when we didn’t have any Televisions or Radios.
Businesses communicate straight to the consumer with advertising techniques such as fliers, catalogue distribution, promotional letters, and street advertising.
Through this channel the marketer sends the message directly to the end consumer without the use of intervening commercial communication media.
By far this has still been the most effective marketing medium.
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| Email Marketing |
For a company which has an option to offer the products online, this medium is most sorted out.
Invention of Internet has made the world smaller and easily connectable. It’s a medium that can bring down your marketing expense by almost 70%.
An E-mailer is designed and sent to millions of target consumers in just a flick of time.
Many companies still focus on Email campaign as 90% of their marketing medium.
Studies have even shown that almost 75% of buyers have bought something of their choice as an outcome of online promotional mailers.
An established DM vendor would not only execute you activity but will also provide a complete report on successful execution of the campaign such as volume of campaign, delivered and bounces.
These reports can help you even the details on number of prospects who have opened the email / unique clicks on the E-mailer. Such clicks can be directly to your official URL.
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SMS Marketing / Mobile Marketing |
Otherwise known as Fraction of Second Marketing...
Cutting down marketing expenditure during economic downturn, BULK SMS marketing is a cost effective way to achieve your objectives and increase sales. SMS Marketing provides you features such as:
Mobile Coupons:
To convert special offer into Purchase.You no longer need to offer physical offer coupons. Now your esteemed customers can relax at home to enjoy various promotions and offer you have in store for them. You can bulk sms coupon code for your offer and your customers just have to produce the sms code during purchase.
Short codes:
Incase of multiple interactions with your customers over various offers, you can generate short codes for enabling customers to directly interact with you and almost instantly. Short codes are generally used to generate subscriptions.
SMS is increasingly becoming a source of getting in touch with customers.
Communication with your clients is essential for relationship building and sales.
Organizations choose SMS to easily update their customers on changes, promotions, new product updates, contest and more.
Finally….Tell your vendor the following.
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Telemarketing |
Telemarketing is generally considered most effective when used as a support feature for other DM activities.
You may run an email campaign, sms campaign or even may have posted your promotional fliers to the Target consumers. These medium are most effective when they are followed-up by reminders.
The tele team is usually given a database to make follow-up calls on the activity recently undertaken. These should be the same databases that have been used for your DM campaigns.
The telecaller gathers the information on the communication mode and gives a follow up call to detail more on the offer and track the immediate response on the campaign.
These processes would either be run for Hot Lead Generation or even for an End-to-End sales process.
A Hot Lead Generation process is where the caller only gives a brief on the company’s product / services and tracks the favourable responses. The list of consumers who have shown interest in the offer is then given to the company for further followup and closing of the sale.
A Sales process is where the telecaller has to handle end-to-end sales. The caller details the features of the offer and also closes the sales transaction.
If any of your advertisements ask the prospect to take a specific action, for instance call / sms on a phone number or visit a website, then the effort is considered to be direct response advertising.
A sub-discipline of Direct Marketing is called Direct Response Advertising.
Database is an vital element for any Direct Marketing channel you may choose. A Good DM vendor should own good consumer list that are segmented and well classified with Demographic and Geographical parameters. Your vendor may also be able to provide you a base that was used for similar process as your’s and even share the success rate.
Thus, Incase you are looking for an effective marketing medium, choose Direct Marketing. Save Money... Increase Marketing efficiency
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