Is Direct Marketing for Me?

Direct marketing is not for everyone. You must have determination, persistence and resources to make it work and if you follow a few well-defined rules, your results can be remarkable!

Develop an Understanding

You must have a clear understanding of your company's requirements and determine exactly what it is that you want to achieve. To enable you to do this, you need to understand your product / services, your customers and your competitors. Ask yourself these questions:

  • What is the purpose of this campaign?
  • Do I want to acquire new customers?
  • Am I trying to bring back inactive customers?
  • Do I want more prospects?

Be Committed

The number one reason people fail (note it is people who often fail and not direct marketing that fails) is because they do not get behind the idea 110%; they are either afraid of it, or they do not understand it. To make direct marketing work, you need to do more than just one campaign; you should be looking at a minimum of three campaigns to the same prospects. This 3-hit approach has the effect of getting past the "I looked at this once before and I did not have time", to "gee I have seen an awful lot of this, I had better follow it up and read it through and perhaps take action".

Set Objectives

You need to set clear objectives right from the start, as it is the objectives that allow you to measure the exact success of your campaign. You must determine what you expect to achieve. Is it direct sales, sales leads, or are you trying to improve customer loyalty? Whatever you decide, you must then be single-minded in constructing your campaign to achieve this objective. If you try to do two things at once your campaign will probably fail.

Set Your Schedule

Many mailings will have a number of different production elements, e.g. an outer envelope or packaging, a personalised letter, a brochure and perhaps a promotional item or sample. All of these will have different production time schedules and it is essential that they all come together neatly to deliver a complete mailing pack by the required deadline.