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Direct Marketing: Overlooked, Underappreciated and Unstoppable

by: Dali Singh

As business leaders and professionals, we all know by now that the success of an organization is driven by one thing: whether or not people choose to buy what you've got to sell. According to a recent survey involving U.S. senior executives, marketing will be the most important area of expertise for the next-generation of leaders.

Every business needs customers, but more importantly every business needs to maintain those customers while constantly retaining new ones. The only successful way of doing this is by learning everything about your customers, including who they are? What do they have in common? Do they share a hobby, an age range, a life stage, or a geographic community? Can you break them down into groups? The answers to these questions hold a wealth of information for you.

Although direct marketing can be overlooked by many businesses, here are statistics proving the effectiveness of direct mail campaigns over the years.

According to the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) 2005 Postal and Email Marketing Report:

* For postal mailings, 43% of direct marketers indicated that their up-front gross response has increased from 2003 to 2002.
* As with postal mailings, when asked about 2004, respondents showed more optimism in their up-front email response rates, with 51% projecting an increase and 32% stable response rates.
* For postal mailers, the top list techniques used to improve 2003 front-end response were enhancements to internal housefile databases (50%), demographic segmentation (50%), and prior mail history analysis (46%). Most list techniques had a success rate of 80% or greater.

According to the DMA 2004 E-Commerce Report:

* The portion of companies having an in-house email marketing list has increased from 74% to 85%
* 43% of Web and email investment is allocated towards marketing, compared to 35% in 2002

The direct marketing industry employs the top minds of our world to analyze and build databases and marketing campaigns to address only the concerns and needs of a selected audience, which history has proven to be accurate 70% of the time. Typically, budgets are based more on analyzing the product, service and/or the consumer rather than playing an ROI guessing game.

Brief Case Study of a Client

Here is a case study of a client that used direct marketing to increase their bottom line:

Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corporation (AHMCC), the largest U.S. privately held mortgage banker/mortgage broker initiated a more sophisticated form of direct mail marketing in 2003, which included the use of opt-in email files and multi-level marketing to reach new customers. The results were that AHMCC increased their revenues by 100% and increased their closing ratio by 15% by using email alone. Customer loyalty went up and referrals hit the roof. AHMCC now has 700 offices in 49 states, Guam and the Virgin Islands!

As the marketplace continues to evolve and change due the economic landscape and the need to offset expensive ad campaigns, direct marketing continues to play a major role for the success of any sized business. Regardless of the negative connotations that the public has on direct marketing, the truth of the matter is that corporations are vehicles that satisfy the needs of people and marketing is the channel that helps facilitate this process.

Ultimately, in order to be successful, companies must learn to maintain the loyalty of their customers and get in front of new ones by practicing 1 simple rule: Providing good product and service to the right people, at the right time, in the right place and in the right way.

About the author:

Brian Rice is the Founder & President of Red Clay Media, a full-service marketing data provider, direct mail and data services company. Visit or email Brian directly at brian @redclaymedia.com

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eMarketing Basics
by: Matt Bacak

eMarketing, commonly known as an Internet marketing tool, refers to 'how' businesses market their services or products online. In this new age of technology, an Internet presence directly affects the success of a business. From an ecommerce site to an informational site, eMarketing begins at your homepage.

Utilize a Website

Every website has one goal and that is to heighten the interest of the reader. For the homepage to be an effective eMarketing tool, web content needs to follow the search engine optimized (SEO) techniques outlined by search engine domains like Google and Yahoo. Once landing on your site, the content will act as a sales letter.

Whether you operate a service or sell products, eMarketing is more affordable than the traditional means of marketing. Over 130,000,000 people surf the Internet daily. It would take a hefty investment to reach this number of people in the more traditional means of marketing.

Producing a website that ranks well in the search engines, will assist you in obtaining more visitors and visitors easily convert into customers at a rather amazing rate.

Cost Comparison

Printing promotional material can be quite costly. With a website, this cost is significantly lower because your site eliminates the need for brochures or an abundance of business cards. Instead of sending a new prospective literature in the mail, re-direct them to your website. It will guide potential customers through the basics of your business.

Studies show that the per-reader response rates of newspaper advertisements are low. This is due to the number of readers that scan over your add that really have not interest in your services or products. Online readers, however, are a direct result of search engines. These people want to know more about your services or products. The likelihood of turning visitors into customers is higher.

Advertising Campaign

With eMarketing, the cost of an advertising campaign is drastically lower. The same rules apply but with less effort. You'll need to locate your target market, address their interest, and show how they can benefit.

Typical, ezines or announcements serve as an eMarketing campaign medium. Utilizing these mediums will improve your online business. Here's how you can get started:

Ezines: Ezines are nothing more than an electronic newsletter. There are several services online that will assist you in writing an ezine. But use caution! It's bad business to send an ezine to someone who hasn't subscribed.

Announcements: Announcements are similar to a press release. Using the electronic transfer of news to an email box, you can announce new events, new services, and new products a lot faster.

Hottest eMarketing Tool

Today, e-books are the hottest marketing tool of the Twentieth Century. Once Internet Gurus grasp the concept of selling their services or products with an e-book, the market jumped. Adding an e-book to your tools of eMarketing is a smart move.

E-books consist of hidden links (as in, not apparent) that the inexperienced e-book reader can't see. These links help promote affiliate programs and sell your services or products. The readers click through the e-book and find themselves at your site.

E-books are an eMarketing medium that needs careful planning. It makes no sense to develop an e-book on dogs if you sell household appliances. To be successful at eMarketing with e-books, you need to write content related to your business. For instance:

� Home Improvement - How to Design a Kitchen

� Accountant - How Small Businesses can Benefit From a CPA

� Web Developer - How a Website Can Help

Bottom Line

eMarketing has saved businesses thousands of advertising dollars. It's an effective marketing tool that every business should take advantage of. With a better understanding of how eMarketing can help improve your business, you can prepare for an eMarketing campaign that will exceed all of your expectations.

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