Guide to Direct Marketing Strategies

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DIRECT MARKETING

Direct marketing is a type of activity aimed at obtaining responses from prospective customers, whether through telephone, letter, e-mail or fax communication.

Planning is a professional approach taken in direct marketing. The plan does not need to be too complicated and complex, but by analyzing the target market and selecting the message to be delivered and setting the sales goals.

Forms of direct marketing include:

Direct selling
Direct mail
Telemarketing
Internet selling
Direct action marketing
Catalog selling
Television / print media
Cable TV

Successful direct marketing is an art and a science and is more trial and error. As time goes on the chances of a successful direct marketing campaign being launched by a company can increase.

First, the company gets an idea, then tests the idea in a letter that is distributed and then refines the work based on the level of response received.

Now more and more direct marketing campaigns are waged through electronic media, no longer with print media.

Direct response advertisements can be done through television and radio including advertisements and brief infomercials.

Factors that contributed to the growth of direct marketing are:

1. Consumer Credit Cards
Over 1 billion credit cards in circulation

2. Direct Marketing Syndicates Creating Opportunities

a. List development
b. Statement inserts
c. Catalogs / Sweepstakes

3. Changing Structure of World Society

a. Increase in two household income
b. Money-rich / Time-poor - need for convenience

4. Technological Advances

a. Better communications via electronic media & computers
b. Rapid package delivery
c. Electronic delivery systems

5. Ability to measure the effects of direct marketing efforts

Cost per order/Cost per inquiry.

Direct Marketing Strategies

1. One-step approach, direct marketing media that is used directly to collect orders

2. Two-step approach, many attempts are used to produce a response. The first attempt is used to filter out qualified or potential buyers. Follow-up is used to generate orders or close sales.

3. Direct Marketing Media

Direct mail
Broadcast media (direct response ads / information)
Print media
Telemarketing
Direct selling

Advantages of direct marketing

It can open new distribution channels that offer transportation from suppliers to customers and this can save distribution costs if it has to distribute to distributors or retailers.

Other advantages are:

Target more precisely
It is more cost-effective
Easier responsibility and control
General and more flexible
The opportunity to do the test becomes bigger.
It can enter the international market more easily because it has a wider network.

The success of marketing with the direct marketing method is also largely determined by how to choose a list of names and addresses of the names and addresses of the people to be sent a bid letter.

The list of names and addresses is not just a means to reach the market because the list of names and addresses is the market itself.

Foresight in choosing a list of names and addresses is the most important factor that determines the size of the response of the intended recipient.

For example, a great script and letter design might be able to bring about twice the response compared to a letter of offer whose text and design is mediocre.

However, a list of names and addresses that are right and good can bring more response than a list of bad names and addresses.

The effectiveness of direct mail methods, envelopes, sales letters, techniques for designing effective order forms.

Long format direct mail and short format direct mail. Standard direct mail consists of external envelopes, offer letters, brochures, various inserts (lift notes, buck slips) and elements of consumer responses such as offer forms, requests for information and so on.

Direct mail can be the most effective means of promotion for many years because according to survey results in America, that there are still many executives who still want to open and read the letters they receive and some of them consider that the letter is an important business tool.

While other studies show that direct postal mail (direct mail) is a sales communication medium that is commonly used by companies engaged in sales.

In this survey, it was revealed that direct mail was the most effective means to:

Increase sales.
Educate consumers about the best ways about how to make the best decisions regarding complex issues.
Selling to consumers from businesses (business to business).
Introducing prospects for new products and services or their new services.

Telemarketing has a bad reputation and many consumers hate it. In Henry Holt's book, Dave Barry’s Bad Habits states:

The best thing about the phone is that it keeps us connected with others, especially those who offer a midnight magazine subscription. Those people are abducted by big publishers, they will not be fed if they fail to sell 350 magazines every day.

People must hate telemarketing, just as they hate direct mail and television advertisements, even though all of these marketing methods have proven to be effective.

Telemarketing is results-oriented marketing media and is not intended to build the company's image or raise brand awareness or promote the company's reputation.

Thanks to telephone sales efforts are becoming more focused and the results are faster.

The level of recipient response to telemarketing varies greatly, depending on market conditions, type of product or service and depends on the main purpose, whether only seeking sales information, arranging agreements with prospects or exploring prospect qualifications.

The internet is becoming a very fast-growing medium in the development of direct marketing. Business conducted in the internet era is business to business (b2b) and business to consumers (b2c).

Business to business market characteristics have many differences with the consumer market, such differences are:

The size of the market
The low number of customers
High average customer spending
The vast geographical area

And the relative complexity of differences in buyer behavior that has very significant differences.

The business to business commercial sector includes four main sub-sectors, namely:

Own consumption, consisting of sales of machinery, office furniture, stationary and others.
Incorporation and Assembly, materials and supplies essential for the production of goods and services. Material identity cannot be lost from large products, organizations sometimes hand over original manufacturing equipment.
Resale to other organizations.
Retail sales to meet the needs of goods and services that will be consumed by consumers.

Three stages of integration of e-commerce methods into direct marketing programs:

1. First phase:

Post a product description on your website to provide the actual price (REV). Consumers must also be given instructions on how to do marketing as well as various shipping and processing alternatives.

Site visitors can also contact the telephone number written on the website. Provide order forms in HTML or pdf format.

Have website visitors print the order form, fill out and then send it by post or fax, as done by offline consumers.

2. Second phase:

Replace the order form with a more interactive order form. Visitors do not need to print an order form, they can fill out directly online by filling in the fields provided.

After completion, they send the order form and pay according to the amount stated by entering the credit card number they have. Then you will process the credit number manually to get authorization.

3. Third phase:

Websites that already have a complete catalog or a sophisticated online shopping cart system.

Reaching this third phase means that your business scale is quite large and is equal to operators who have to mail-order catalogs or store chains.

Where the buyer can freely open the catalog page or walk in the supermarket, put the desired item into the cart and finally pay to the cashier.

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