What is Direct Marketing?

Directing marketing can be defined as an act of making direct contact with existing and potential customers to promote ones products or services. Direct marketing is very different from media advertising in that, it gives you an opportunity to target particular sets of people with a unique message. Direct marketing uses a variety of different methods such as direct mail, mail shots and leaflets; direct marketing is very powerful in generating sales. Hence, its cost effectiveness which is suitable for small scale business.

WHY SHOULD WE USE DIRECT MARKTEING?

Direct marketing helps or allows business to generate response from targeted customers thereby, helping small business to focus their limited marketing resources where they are most likely to get result and make profit which will be ploughed back into the business.

A direct marketing campaign with a clear call to action can help you boost your sales to existing customers, increase customer loyalty, recapture old customers and generate new business. Direct marketing can be evaluated and measured precisely. You can analyse results to see which target group was most responsive. You can also test your marketing with sample groups before you roll out the campaign that will deliver the best response date.

HOW D0 I MEASURE RESULT IN DIRECT MARKETING?

Every business whether big or small wants to know if they are making profits or not. This is because the primary reason for going into a business is to make profit aside meeting the customers’ needs.

In direct marketing, efforts are easily measurable and accounted for unlike advertising where the reverse is the case. In direct marketing, you can easily calculate a breakeven point. By this we mean that you can calculate the number of sales you need to make to cover the marketing cost. This is achievable by working out the cost per response and actual return on investment. That way, you can tell if you are making profit or not.

Reference: The Marketing Donut: Resources For Your Business