The focus of Direct Marketing is to send messages directly to the targeted customer, either business or consumer. Direct marketing is designed to drive a response and the emphasis should be on measuring responses, tracking results and analyzing the ROI.

1.     Determine the OBJECTIVE for your direct marketing program.  State the Problem and the anticipated marketing Solution.  Direct marketing can be used for new customer acquisition, new product/service offerings, special offers for existing customers, activating inactive customers, getting referrals, customer service offers , generating leads, obtaining orders etc.

2.      Choose your Method of Contact carefully. Direct Marketing includes direct mail (from individual mailers to catalogs), e-mail marketing, telemarketing (B to B), Mobile marketing/text messaging, couponing, direct response TV,  voicemail marketing (B to B), search engine marketing and direct response advertising can be used in newspapers, magazines, yellow pages and radio.

3.      Choose your LISTS wisely and be VERY targeted based on your objective.

You must be responsible and suppress Do Not Mail and Do Not Call lists. You must offer OPT-OUT options for your e-mail & mobile marketing campaigns.  The Direct Marketing Association has developed a DMAChoice file that you can use to suppress those people who do not want to be solicited. Check this out: www.the-dma.org.  Your customers should be given the opt-out or opt-in option as well. You can add a field onto your customer database that let’s you know a customer’s preferred contact method! For email marketing, follow the regulations in the CAN-SPAM Act.

4.     Choose your OFFER to complement your objective and method of contact. Offers must be good enough to get attention and cause a response! Test them to choose the best. Not all offers work with all contact methods. Search engine marketing needs to be very short and to the point.  Direct response TV needs to be visually appealing and allows for the impact of both seeing and hearing the message. Direct mail should quickly grab attention with a fabulous offer to prevent a toss into the trash. And the most popular word in offers is: FREE!!!!

5.      Choose your CREATIVE DESIGN to complement all of the above.  It should accurately reflect the spirit of the brand and be consistent with the company image. The design of a text message is in the written word, the design of voicemail is in the tone and spoken word, the design of the direct mail is visual creativity and the written word. So design isn’t just about color and logos, it is about the message and how it is presented.