When marketing and advertising come to mind, many people think of brand giants like Apple, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola. These large businesses use elaborate campaigns that really stick with the viewer. As a small business, seeing campaigns like this may lead you to the belief that you need to create a similar larger-than-life campaign for your business. However, you have another method at your disposal which is much more simplistic, and also happens to be trackable, measurable, and very effective. This method is direct response marketing.
A Quick Breakdown of Direct Response Marketing
Essentially, direct response marketing is all about driving your target audience to a specific action. This is achieved by showcasing an offer that is relevant to your targeted audience, providing adequate information that outlines the offer’s benefits and having a clear call to action.
Different Way to Utilize
Below is an example of direct response marketing, and some of the many mediums to which you can apply the strategy:
Email Campaign — a standard way to implement this marketing strategy in an email campaign would be to first acquire an audience. Many people find success in giving one of their products or services away in exchange for a user’s email address. Once you have their email address, you know they are interested in whatever your free item was, and can then further target them with a similar product.
For instance, let’s say a user creates an account with their email in exchange for a shoe discount on your website. You know they are in the market for some new shoes, so you target them with an email that showcases a shoe sale. You display the savings that are going on and, assuming your desired action is for the customer to purchase a shoe, you choose “Buy Now” as your call to action. This would meet all of the criteria for direct response marketing, since it is targeted, trackable, measurable, and has a clear call to action.
You can apply those same principles to many different mediums such as TV commercials, direct mail, billboards, social media, and more.
Sales — as described in the example above, this is a very common way to use direct response marketing.
Upselling — some businesses thrive on upselling through monthly reminders to current customers with their new deals.
Nurturing customers to the next stage — a main goal may be to drive a customer to a sale, but sometimes they are not ready to buy. When trying to guide a customer through the sales funnel, make sure your call to action reflects taking them to the next step.
Recruitment — remember, this marketing strategy is not exclusive to sales. You can utilize it for whatever action you are trying to accomplish, which in this case, could be recruiting employees for your company.
Growing your customers through referrals — this is a great way to grow your customer base with added benefit, as a referred customer’s lifetime value is 16% higher than a non-referred customer.
In Summary
Direct response is a tried and tested technique for all businesses to utilize in driving action now instead of later. It is adaptable and will help you in achieving the specific goal you are after. Being trackable and measurable are added benefits, as you can keep a close eye on your return on investment to see what is working, and what to cut.
To learn more about direct response marketing, or how to incorporate it into your business, contact us at The frank Agency.
