Importance Of Direct Marketing

The practice of delivering promotional messages directly to potential customers on an individual basis through a mass medium is called Direct Marketing. It is a type of marketing with a sub discipline. There are two different types of characteristics.

It attempts to send messages directly to consumers without intervening the media by involving commercial communication like direct mail, e-mail, telemarketing with consumers.

It is also focused on driving purchase that can be attributed to specific “call to action”. This marketing is simply known as response in the industry regardless of medium. This marketing involves an emphasis on track able, measurable positive but not negative responses from consumers.

Direct marketing is designed as to solicit a specific and quantifiable. The delivery of the response is direct between the viewer and the advertiser, that is, the customer responds to the marketer directly. This is in contrast in which the marketer contacts the potential customer directly. Like direct marketing, direct response seeks to elicit action. It is inherently accountable since results can be tracked and measured. Furthermore, direct response campaigns perform best if the underlying strategies and tactics are highly competitive.

One common form of direct response marketing today is the Infomercial. Companies such as Script to Screen, Hawthorne Direct, Guthy Renker and International Shopping Network know as infomercials. These Infomercials are also known as direct response TV commercials. Short form direct response commercials have time lengths ranging from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Long form infomercials are 30 minutes long. Infomercials try to achieve a direct response via television presentations. Viewers respond via telephone or Internet, credit card in hand.

An offshoot of the infomercial is the home shopping industry. A home shopping host will showcase a product directly to the viewer, and encourage them to purchase the item. Other media, such as magazines, newspapers, radio, and e-mail can be used to elicit the response, but they tend to achieve lower response rates than television.

Mail order describes a form of direct response in which customers respond by mailing a completed order form to the marketer. It is slow and response rates are low. It has been eclipsed by toll-free telephone numbers and the internet.

Instead of trying to brand their product in the market place, but direct response ads like infomercials can be contrasted with normal television commercials because traditional commercials normally do not solicit a direct immediate response from the viewer.

Improving the appeal and uniqueness of an offer is a first step for improving response. An offer must be targeted such that its appeal is relevant to the wants or needs of the audience, so the choice of media or list carries similar importance as the perceived value of the offer.