The Three Most Important Things to Consider in Direct Marketing

How to improve your direct marketing.

1. Who you target

A key factor involved in whether your direct marketing will be a success or not is who you target your direct marketing communications to and how accurate your campaign data is.

You simply must do your research and understand who your ideal customers are so your direct marketing will target them effectively.  A great way to do this is by looking at the characteristics of customers who have already bought from you – try and find things they have in common and use this information to build up a customer profile you can use to identify potential customers you should be targeting.

Things you could consider when examining your existing customers and building your ideal customer profile include:

• Type of business
• Size of business
• Location of business
• Age of business
• Premise type
• Number of employees
• Area of expertise e.g. what they specialise in doing
  

Once you have identified what type of customers you should be targeting, it is very important that you buy accurate, targeted business data lists so your direct mail, telemarketing and email marketing efforts reach the right people. 

Remember, you wouldn’t send out a marketing campaign full of spelling mistakes because it would have a negative impact on how your business is perceived – first impressions really do make a difference!  But the same can be said of sending out marketing campaigns using data lists which are out of date or inaccurate. 

If you are confident in the accuracy of your data and can identify anything personal from it about your potential customers, you can use it to segment the data list and talk to your prospects in a more targeted way.  The more you are able to target your marketing communications, the more likely they will attract attention and persuade potential customers to respond.

It really is worth taking the time to make sure you get the best quality data lists for your marketing campaigns that you can.

2. Measuring success

The beauty of direct marketing is that it allows you to track individual customer responses and measure exactly what your campaign achieves – so make sure you get your tracking right and your marketing results are accurate.

Accurate results will ensure you are able to test and refine your marketing campaigns so you achieve the best response rates you can.

Example ways of tracking customer responses by direct marketing channel include:

a) Telephone

Use unique telephone numbers and track the number of calls made to each
Get the customer to quote a unique code (often known as a source code) which relates to the marketing piece they received.

b) Direct Mail

If the customer has to complete a form, pre-populate a field on the form with a source code you can track when the form is returned to you.
Use a unique telephone number and/or ask the customer to quote a source code when calling.

Print a trackable link to your website.  Setting up trackable links can be quite a complicated process, and we advise you to seek assistance from a specialist marketing agency if you aren’t sure how to achieve this.

c) Telemarketing

Use a well organised spreadsheet or campaign management system to record and monitor the individual responses you get to your telemarketing campaign.

d) Email Marketing

Use email marketing software that will tell you how many emails were delivered, opened and clicked on.

3. Return on investment

If there is one thing you must ensure your do as part of your direct marketing effort, its work out the return on investment (ROI) it generates for your business.  There is absolutely no point spending valuable resource and money on direct marketing campaigns if they don’t generate a positive return for you.

By tracking your campaign responses accurately, you will be able to work out the return on investment (ROI) by analysing how much you spent compared with the revenue generated.