What Is Direct Marketing, And What Are Its Benefits For Your Business?
Imagine seeing an advertisement on YouTube. The skip button is the first thing you look for even before finding what the ad is about. Now, imagine getting a personalised postcard addressing you personally with a product/service you are interested in or like.
Which of these ads is likely to grab your attention? If your answer is the postcard, then you already understand the effectiveness of direct marketing in a broad sense. As a business owner or marketer, wouldn’t it make more sense to market your business similarly?
Learning how it works and the different ways you can market your business directly to customers could be a game-changer for your company. Below we discuss what is direct marketing and why it is so crucial and beneficial for your business.
So, let us take a deeper look at direct marketing and how you can implement it for your business.
What is Direct Marketing?
Every business owner and marketer has at least once heard about direct marketing and its potential to boost sales. As the name implies, direct marketing involves marketing products and services directly to a pre-selected target audience.
One thing that makes this marketing strategy unique is that one of its primary goals is to initiate a personal relationship with the customer. A direct marketing campaign can use more than one marketing channel to convey the message efficiently to the target audience.
Traditional marketing channels randomly target prospects and hope the relevant audience will notice them. Direct marketing allows you to narrow down on relevant audiences, which ultimately results in higher response and conversion rates.
How Does Direct Marketing Work?
We have already established that direct marketing campaigns communicate directly with the target audience. Companies can use any communication channel that best suits their requirements for their direct campaigns. The most preferred channels for direct campaigns are
- Social media
- Phone/SMS
You are likely already using at least one of the above communication channels for marketing purposes. But are you using those channels to their full potential? That is the question that you need to ask yourself.
Quality Over Quantity
You may notice that every one of the channels above is more than capable of reaching out to a massive number of people. Yet, experienced direct marketing experts never make the mistake of focusing on quantity rather than quality.
Prioritise Personalisation
The success of direct marketing in Australia is not in its extensive reach but in sending personalised marketing messages that connect with the target. Personalised marketing means everything from the offer you pitch to using the customer’s name in the marketing message.
The more personalised your direct marketing, the more likely you will get a positive response from your target audience. Of course, it also depends on how well you target your campaign. There is no point in sending flyers for a bike insurance package to an elderly community, even if you address the audience by their name.
Always Have a Call To Action (CTA)
Another noticeable aspect of direct marketing is that it always has an attractive CTA or Call To Action. The CTAs are an integral and essential part of direct marketing. It urges your target audience to respond to your marketing message. Typically the type of response in your direct campaign includes
- Scanning a QR code
- Clicking on a link
- Calling a toll-free phone number
- Sending a reply card
- And more
Any response to your direct marketing campaign is a positive indicator. Hence, it would be a good idea to take your time to come up with an attractive CTA for direct response marketing.
Why Is Direct Marketing Important For Your Business?
Now that we know what is direct marketing and how it works, it is time to answer the more important question. Why is it so crucial for your business organisation to use direct response marketing?
What is the reason why more and more businesses are adopting direct marketing? We can give you not one but four reasons why your business needs direct response marketing.
1. Direct Marketing Enables Your To Reach Customers Fast
As we explained, you can use several channels to deliver your direct marketing message. It includes communication channels like email, text messages, etc. These communication channels can send your marketing message directly to your customers instantaneously.
Furthermore, several direct marketing tools can help you create and streamline your direct campaigns. You can optimise your direct mail campaigns using advanced tools like PostGrid. It minimises the time for printing and delivering marketing materials significantly.
2. Direct Marketing Is Perfect For Your Promotional Strategies
As we have mentioned above, the best aspect of a direct marketing campaign is its ability to target a specific audience. Suppose the audience of your marketing campaign is genuinely interested in what you are offering. In that case, it is more likely to generate a response.
Furthermore, the focused nature of the campaign ensures the maximum efficiency of your promotional message. In other words, you can create a marketing message with a particular customer persona in mind. It is almost like writing a personal letter to someone you know well.
3. Direct Marketing Is Customisable
What makes direct marketing such a formidable strategy in marketing is its ability to be personalised or customised. Personalised messages have a significant impact on prospective customers. Of course, this is under the assumption that you have the relevant customer data required for the personalisation.
For instance, let’s say your customer database includes information about your target audience, such as
- Age
- Income range
- Browsing habits
- And more
You can use all this information to determine which product/service, tone of voice, etc., is ideal for your direct marketing campaign. In other words, you can develop customised marketing content for all your prospective and existing customers.
4. Direct Marketing Is Measurable
Measuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaign is much easier for a direct marketing campaign. All you have to do is keep track of the response you get for a specific CTA you used for the campaign. If it’s a toll-free number, count the number of calls you received.
But, many advanced options provide better measurability and insights for your marketing efforts. For example, you can use a QR code in your direct mail campaign to take the customer to your website or landing page.
Once the target audience reaches your website/landing page, you can gather the necessary information using your existing analytic tools.
What Are The Benefits Of Using Direct marketing For Your Business?
There are numerous advantages of using direct marketing for your business. You may have already noticed some of these benefits from what we discussed so far. But, to be safe, let us list and explain the benefits of marketing your product or service directly to your target audience.
Targeted Marketing
Perhaps, the most compelling benefit direct marketing Australia offers your business is the ability to target marketing/advertising. When your target prospects are genuinely interested in the product/service you provide, you effectively increase the chance of a conversion.
Better targeting also leads to better marketing content and messages, which you can repurpose for future marketing campaigns. In short, direct marketing allows you to understand your target audience better and develop more effective marketing communications for your business.
Budget Marketing
Employing direct marketing for your business enables you to focus on specific demographics you want to target. What does that mean for your business? You might wonder. Well, it lets your business set feasible sales targets for your business.
As a result, your business can improve sales while keeping your marketing budget in check. It means your company can run direct marketing campaigns at a fraction of the cost of standard broadcasting promotions.
You can also consider using advanced automated systems for your marketing campaigns as they minimise wastage. For example, a direct mail automation system like PostGrid ensures accurate delivery of your marketing materials. It saves you valuable time and money on direct mail marketing and optimises your marketing expenses.
Increase Sales To Existing And Lapsed Customers
As you know, it is significantly easier for companies to generate sales from their existing customers than to pursue new leads. It is true in the case of direct marketing too. Your current customers are already familiar with your brand, and some trust already exists in them.
When re-establishing relationships with lapsed customers, direct marketing could be the ultimate tool at your disposal. For example, you could send a direct mail postcard to your lapsed customers with a custom discount offer. It can be an effective way to reconnect with your customers.
Not to mention the personal nature of direct mail postcards, which boosts the chance of generating a response. One of the best direct marketing examples is systems like PostGrid even offer a scheduled mail feature. It allows you to set a time when the system can automatically send mailers to your inactive customers.
Enhance Customer Loyalty
Another benefit of direct marketing Australian business organisations should be aware of is its ability to enhance customer loyalty. When building and maintaining customer relationships, you can’t find a better option than communicating directly with the customers.
Think about it; direct marketing is one of the few strategies that appeal directly to the customer using personalised content. And since you are targeting your existing customers, you already have all the data you might need.
You have the customer’s basic details and know what kind of product/service the customer is interested in. So, all that’s left for you is to use this data to reconnect with the customer and strengthen the relationship.
Combining your business’s customer loyalty programs with your direct marketing techniques cements your bond with customers. Some effective strategies for boosting customer loyalty include
- Giving discount offers
- Sending birthday cards
- Inviting customers to special events
- Early access to online sales
Excellent Launching Pad For New Businesses
If your business organisation is relatively new, direct marketing Australia can be an excellent launching pad for your business. By facilitating effective communication with your target audience, direct campaigns increase sales.
More to the point, you can create genuine advocates for your brand through effective direct marketing techniques. Furthermore, direct response marketing makes it easier for new business organisations to adapt and respond to changing market requirements.
Some of the other ways new businesses can benefit from direct marketing include
- Market-specific products and boost their sales
- Efficiently clear discontinued stock
- Easily renew sales
- Boost customer retention rates
- Cultivate customer loyalty
- Conduct follow-ups on promotional offers
Measure product performance
Suppose you are trying to determine the demand for a specific product or service your company offers. In that case, direct marketing might be your answer. As you know, marketing directly to the customer enables you to try out new markets and evaluate your sales result.
Furthermore, it allows you to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts for specific products/services. As a result, marketers can adjust or modify their marketing efforts to get the best possible outcome for their direct marketing campaigns.
However, to do this effectively, you or whoever is in charge of marketing must monitor and analyse marketing results. It is significantly more manageable if you use a direct marketing tool like PostGrid because it lets you access detailed insights and analytic data.
Types Of Direct Marketing You Can Use For Your Business
Business organisations can categorise their direct marketing efforts into different groups depending on their communication channel. Below we discuss some of the best and most effective ways to market your business directly to the target audience.
Direct Mail
Some might think that a traditional marketing channel like direct mail is out of place in this list. But, hear us out. There is a reason why business organisations, including large enterprises, continue to use direct mail as one of their trusted direct marketing channels.
The short answer to why you must use direct mail as a marketing channel is that it is highly effective. It is so effective that its ROI is significantly higher than most direct and digital marketing campaigns. Furthermore, mailing or sending bulk mail for your business is no longer a messy and endless process.
Automated direct mail tools like PostGrid enable you to send direct mail to your target audience effortlessly. You can easily customise the direct marketing campaigns by integrating PostGrid’s API into your existing systems or CRMs.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is another famous example of direct marketing that can benefit your business. There is a reason why marketers call email the currency of the internet. Almost every person browsing the internet has an email address, which makes it an ideal marketing channel.
Email marketing is an excellent way for businesses to generate leads. However, you may find that the open and response rate for email marketing is below that of direct mail. Because let’s face it, we all tend to ignore our emails, sometimes without a valid reason.
On the other hand, email marketing is much faster and more flexible for your direct marketing needs. And there are so many specialised tools in the market that you will have no problem automating your email campaigns.
Social Media Marketing
They say- to reach the right audience, you must go to the right place, and social media is THE right place. Where else can you find millions of people brandishing aesthetics and celebrating their taste more openly than on social media? Social media platforms are a perfect fit for direct marketing.
You can use organic social media marketing to build a community for your brand and develop customer relationships. But what makes it one of the best direct marketing examples is that it enables you to target specific audiences.
Social media giants like Facebook (Meta) have so many advanced targeting and marketing features that some companies depend entirely on social media marketing. Hence, it is easy and convenient for businesses to execute direct marketing campaigns via social media platforms.
SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is an example of direct marketing, which involves sending permission-based text messages to the target audience. The basic working of SMS marketing is no different from email marketing, except that here you use the customer’s phone number.
You can send all kinds of marketing messages via SMS marketing, including
- Updates
- Promos
- Discount offers
- Event Invitations
- Sales notification
- And more.
The upside of using SMS marketing is that it offers a quick and cost-effective way to reach out to your prospects. On the flip side, SMS or text messages can only accommodate text content, and you miss the chance to utilise pictures.
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is what marketers might call a classic example of direct marketing. It involves calling prospective customers over the phone and convincing them to take the desired action. In most cases, this desired action is buying a product or service from your business.
The typical process in telemarketing involves multiple sales representatives reaching out to potential customers. Of course, you also have the option to outsource call centres. One significant advantage of this direct marketing is the human capability to be persistent and convincing to the audience.
Besides that, you also get a real-time response from the audience. Hence, there is no waiting around, hoping the customer will take your bait and get in touch with you. It is no wonder that telemarketing is still one of the most commonly used direct marketing examples.
Leaflet Marketing
Leaflet marketing is one of the best direct marketing examples for small businesses. Small-scale businesses love leaflet marketing because it offers a simple and affordable way for businesses to reach out to their customers.
In addition, leaflet marketing has an outstanding response rate provided that you execute it right. You can even automate the whole process using tools like PostGrid. Your direct marketing campaign becomes a whole lot easier with an automated solution.
And since Australia Post offers Unaddressed Mail, you can have your leaflets delivered directly to their doorstep. Of course, you would have to figure out local areas with clusters of target audiences. Luckily, PostGrid even offers geocoding and Geo-mapping capabilities to streamline your direct marketing campaign.
Other Direct Marketing
There are several other direct marketing examples that you can try out for your business, such as
- Direct selling
- Catalogues
- Push notification marketing
- And more
The key is analysing your marketing requirements, target audience, and budget to narrow in on the most appropriate direct marketing method. You should also consider if you can automate the marketing campaign as it can save a lot of time and eliminate errors.
Conclusion
It is high time that business organisations learn what is direct marketing and why it is essential in today’s business environment. Many companies are still in the dark about marketing their business directly to customers.
If done correctly, direct marketing can offer so much to businesses. The sooner you realise it, the better it is for your business. Implementing direct advertising for your business is not that big of a challenge if you have the right set of tools.
Take PostGrid, for example. It is a direct mail automation tool that lets your print and deliver personalised marketing messages to the target audience. As a result, your direct marketing campaigns become much more streamlined and error-free.
Similarly, other advanced automated solutions for various direct marketing channels can help you. Hence, every company must make it a point to do its research to run effective marketing campaigns that yield the best possible results.
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The post Direct Marketing: What, Why, How and Examples appeared first on PostGrid.
source https://www.postgrid.com.au/direct-marketing/
