Direct marketing

Direct marketing is a form of advertising that denies any channel of communication other than direct to the end consumer. In other words, when a commercial or non-profit organization addresses directly to the consumer as an individual, bypassing intermediaries, it is direct marketing.

The peculiarity of direct marketing consists in personal allocation of prospective buyers to establish with them direct two-way communication, regular maintenance of individual ties with this buyer. In the global market, thanks to widespread computerization, it became possible to combine in the advertising campaign mass with an individual approach to each consumer.

Direct marketing is used in those market segments and in the case when the personal value of the subject of communication is great, when as a result of direct communication is a high probability of getting a new customer, and the cost of direct communication, in this case, is much lower than the benefit from the sale of the object of marketing to this customer

Direct marketing emphasizes a focus on customers, data and reporting. Thus actual communication, segment creation, analytic campaigns and measuring results are an integral part of any good direct marketing campaign.

• direct mail marketing;
• telemarketing;
• informational and promotional messages on product packaging;
• e-commerce;
• personal counseling and training;
• trade marketing campaigns - personalized work with the client conducted at the point of sale.

Direct marketing bases are utilized by businesses of all sizes - from small startups to Fortune-500 leaders. Direct marketing can be attractive to you because its positive results can be directly measured. For example, if a marketer sends out 1,000 invitations by mail and 100 of them are responded to, the marketer can say with certainty that the direct marketing campaign led directly to a 10% direct response rate. This metric is known as “quick response rate,” and it is one of many explicitly measurable success metrics used by direct marketing. In contrast, conventional advertising uses indirect measurements such as awareness or commitment because there is no other response from the consumer.

Contrary to popular claims about the antagonism of direct marketing, classical advertising and trade marketing work well with direct marketing when they are consistent with each other. Moreover, regardless of the market segment and marketing model, sooner or later at the lower levels of the sales funnel any mass marketing necessarily ends with direct communication between buyer and seller - direct marketing./p>