From destroying
forests and creating litter to persistent and irritating call centre agents, Direct
Marketing has terrible street cred. With all the negative publicity, one would
expect that the effectiveness of direct marketing initiatives would be
dwindling, but the opposite is true and evident by the ever-evolving direct marketing-related
solutions and strategies. Why? Because direct
marketing WORKS!
Direct marketing (DM) can be defined as a
way of communicating specific and personalised messages to those you know will
be interested in your product or service.
It’s just simply a
question of where, when and how 😊
Direct marketing loves data
The hot topic of DATA is as relevant, if not more so, in
DM Strategies. We probably sound like a broken record to our clients, but can
we repeat…. “70% of the success of the direct
marketing campaign is dependent on the quality of the data”. You can have
the best sales agents, the most amazing product, if the data or the “list” you
are marketing to is low quality, the campaign will fail.
The quality of data
can be assessed through some basic analytics and testing based on DM and
industry experience, benchmarks and expertise.
It's all about retention
When selecting data, priority should be given to ensure a pro-active retention approach. This means quality over quantity, based on the propensity to retain the customer for the maximum period of time. This is where the immediate marketing and sales targets compete with the longer-term profitability results.
Warning: when your
initial sales ratios are sky-rocketing, keep the celebratory bubbles on ice,
but first wait for the persistency ratios after a couple of months. Most companies embark on ineffective
re-active retention strategies, when the initial acquisition costs have already
been incurred.
Research, test, adjust, repeat
It is probably obvious that DM is not a one-size-fit-all solution, neither is it an immediate and precise solution. Designing a progressive direct marketing strategy is essential to ensure profitability and sustainability.
One of the key
advantages of DM is that continued testing
and detailed analytics will limit
initial expense and risk while creating the best suited DM strategy for the
relevant product and target market.
Through continually
analyzing, testing, and adjusting our strategy, we ensure that our strategies are
constantly evolving and improving.
Our model:
Data – Product –
Distribute Data – Product – Distribute Data – Product – Distribute
Data without analytics is worthless
Detailed analytics and reporting throughout the DM process is crucial, not only to measure the results against the expectations, but to identify trends and anomalies. The IoT and digitalisation has revolutionised direct marketing with omni-channels being used effectively across different market segments and for different initiatives. Gone are the days of simple maildrops!
With various
communication tools at our disposal, based on customer preference, across
various platforms from telemarketing to digital marketing, direct marketing has
become more relevant, extremely cost effective and above all customer centric.
Ready to start your
direct marketing campaign? Contact us so that we can discuss a strategy.
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