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Direct marketing

To really learn about direct marketing and how you can use it to better your business you should first understand what direct marketing is.

According to Wikipedia, direct marketing is defined as "a sub discipline of marketing focused to driving purchases that can be attributed to a specific call to action". The direct marketing discipline can include and medium that allows you to communicate directly with customers. Some examples of direct marketing include, direct mail, email, newspaper, radio, television, and of course the internet.

The main focus of any direct marketing strategy is to increase the number of customers that respond to your marketing campaign or "response rate" while also trying to decrease the cost of advertising. Increasing customer response to your advertising will accomplish two very important things. One, increase the number of sales leads generated by advertising, and two, further establish business name recognition.

The ability to properly communicate with your business's target audience is an extremely important factor in your overall business success. As you learn about direct marketing; keep in mind that persistence really does pay.

One of the most important aspects of designing a successful direct marketing campaign is in targeting your audience. Developing a marketing campaign that speaks directly to your potential customer's wants and needs will mean the difference between creating quality sales leads for your business and utter frustration at a lack of customer responsiveness.

Several important questions to answer when developing any direct marketing campaign are:

* Who..? Who are you targeting with your particular business message? Who are the people who would be most interested in hearing what you have to say?

* Why..? Do you just want people to review a few helpful products..or do you want them to retain your services?

* What...? What specific benefits are you offering through your message?

* When...? Are you looking for a more immediate response from your reader...or are you providing food for thought and building your relationship?

* Last but not least...How? How do you intend to present and distribute your message to your potential customers?

Your study of direct marketing will be an on going process. It's important to understand what works for you and your business, what doesn't, and why that is. The key to success will be in continuing to try different strategies and techniques in order to perfect a particular combination of things that work well for you.

Direct marketing is a marketing tool which comprises activities such as direct mail, telemarketing, mail order, direct response advertising and email marketing.

Direct marketing provides a unique range of benefits because it enables you to engage directly with your audience - whether they are prospects, leads, end users or existing customers.

Other advantages of direct marketing include:

Flexible Targeting
Direct marketing enables you to talk directly identify, isolate and communicate with well-defined target markets. This means you get a higher conversion and success rate than if you tried communicating to everyone in the mass market. And direct marketing is also far cheaper than mass market communication.

Multiple Uses
Direct marketing doesn't just have to be used to sell - it can be used to test new markets and trial new products or customers, to reward existing customers to build loyalty, collect information for future campaigns, or segment a customer base.

Cost-Effectiveness
The cost per acquisition of direct mail can be significantly less than other marketing methods. Plus once you've acquired a customer, you can also benefit from highly profitable repeat sales, gained once again through direct marketing methods.

Ease of Management
Direct marketing provides greater control and accountability than other marketing methods. It is easy to measure results because you know exactly how many people you've contacted in the first place. Once you've run a direct marketing campaign and know the conversion rates involved, you can work on refining and improving your success rates. Plus it also makes it easier to plan, forecast and budget for future direct marketing campaigns.

Rapid Delivery
Direct marketing is both swift and flexible in achieving results. This is especially true for telemarketing, one of the direct marketing tools, as the results of a conversation can be logged immediately and scripts adjusted straight away to improve results.

Testing Capability
Direct marketing allows you to test, test and test again in order to hit upon the most successful combination of direct marketing tools. Any of these variables such as timing, list, message, mailer and offer can be adjusted, tested again, and measured to find the optimum direct marketing proposition.

Relationship Building
Direct marketing is far more effective at initiating and developing a meaningful dialogue with new customers. From the outset you have a direct relationship with them, which can also be used as part of a push pull strategy to stimulate demand for retailers.

Targeting of Messages
Direct marketing can enable you to target different messages to different recipients. Using technology such as digital printing, it's even possible to display different images, designs and offers in a direct mailer according to who it's being sent to, as well as personalising the mailer to the recipient to increase conversion rates.

Geographic Targeting
Direct marketing can be used for any level of geographic targeting, whether it's the local area surrounding a shop or restaurant, regional targeting by postcode or county, national targeting and even international - when direct marketing can prove a far cheaper way of testing the market than a costly personal sales visit.

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