Direct Marketing FAQs in the Internet Age

What is Direct Marketing (or Direct Response Marketing)?
How do you know when you should use Direct Marketing?
Isn't Direct Marketing more for postal direct mail?
Isn't Direct Marketing old-fashioned?

Isn't Email marketing copy different from Direct Marketing copy?

Isn't Internet or Website marketing different from Direct Marketing?

DIRECT MARKETING TOPICS

What is Direct Marketing (or Direct Response)?

Direct Marketing, Direct Response, Response Marketing, Trackable Marketing - all names for the same type of marketing efforts. Direct Marketing is designed to:

• Generate (immediate) response (via phone, direct mail, email, or website).
  Direct Marketing efforts encourage the audience to take action NOW (by making a specific Offer). You'll have the best chance of getting a response when you motivate your audience to take action immediately after (or while) viewing your Direct Marketing effort (ad, direct mail, email marketing, website, etc.).

• Create trackable, measurable results from individual customers (through a specific Offer and a request to take a specific action). You want to know who responded, and to what they responded, to track the effectiveness of each direct marketing effort.
• Use any medium, including print (magazine, newspaper), postal mail, websites, email, television, billboard, radio, package inserts, door hangers, transit ads, aerial advertising, postal direct mail, websites, email marketing, television, etc. Anytime your marketing effort is focused on a trackable, measurable response (hopefully as a result of an irresistible Offer), it's Direct Marketing.

View our Direct Marketing Projects

How do you know when you should use Direct Marketing?

Use Direct Marketing . . .

1. When you want an immediate measurable response. Direct Marketing usually is designed to generate an immediate response from a radio or television commercial, magazine or newspaper ad, direct mail, email marketing message or website page. Direct Marketing efforts include a specific Offer, and generate trackable responses and measurable results.
2. When you need to generate immediate sales. Direct Marketing efforts usually include an attractive special Offer, designed to generate immediate sales.
3. When you need to generate leads (to support a sales force, etc.).
4. When you need to generate traffic -- for a retail location, trade show booth, or website.

Isn't Direct Marketing more for postal direct mail?

Direct Marketing techniques started hundreds of years ago with the first catalogs in Europe. Early mail-order catalogers learned how to effectively sell their products with printed words, rather than face-to-face through a retail store or salesperson, paving the way for the Direct Marketing industry.

Direct Marketing is an overall approach to marketing, rather than related to any one medium. You can include an Offer designed to generate a trackable, measurable response in virtually all media, making every medium a Direct Marketing medium.

View our Direct Marketing Projects – from traditional offline media to all website marketing options.

Isn't Direct Marketing old-fashioned? Is it really being used by state-of-the-art marketers now?

Only those marketers who want to be successful rely on Direct Marketing techniques - for online marketing, for email marketing, for virtually ALL types of media that are trying to generate a response.

Direct Marketing is based on translating face-to-face or telephone selling techniques into selling with printed (or on-screen) words. So Direct Marketing is based on the sales process. Has the sales process changed in the Internet age? There's more information available to prospects on the web, but prospects are still sold the same way:

• Attract attention, by promising to either relieve a pain and/or deliver a pleasure.
• Generate interest, by "sizzling" those benefits - making them sound irresistible to the prospect
• Drive desire, by giving a specific reason to act now ("going for the close")
• Drive action, by telling the prospect what to do

Some marketers find the prospect of "selling" distasteful. They would rather focus on creating beautiful website pages, HTML email marketing, print ads, or direct mail. But when you track response, beautiful designs rarely win over strong sales copy.

Of course, ideally we want to combine great design with killer sales copy. But . . . ugly can still sell, where poor sales copy and lack of an attractive Offer rarely generate response even from the most beautiful marketing efforts.

EMAIL MARKETING TOPICS

Isn't Email marketing copy different from direct marketing copy?

Because of ISP (Internet Service Provider) filters, as well as filters set up by individual companies, the use of certain terms in email marketing messages calls for more care when writing email copy.

But people are people, and selling is selling. People are persuaded by attractive Offers, no matter what the medium. And people are also persuaded by a well thought-out sales argument, no matter what the medium.

In postal direct mail, the use of a personal letter has been highly effective for both selling direct and for generating leads. With email marketing, some of the most effective campaigns include personalized email messages, written like a personal email communication. Direct Marketers are effectively using tested, proven headlines, copy, and Offer techniques to create some very successful email marketing campaigns, especially for prospect conversion.

WEB MARKETING TOPICS

Isn't Internet or Website marketing different? Should you really write website copy the same way you would write an email marketing message or a direct mail piece?

When you're visiting websites, do you find yourself saying, "okay, it's the web. So I'm going to make my purchase decisions differently here than if I was reviewing my postal direct mail. And I'm not going to respond to Offers on the web that I might respond to if I received them by postal mail?" (Of course not. You remain a consumer, persuaded by the things relevant and attractive to you, no matter what the medium.)

The same principles that make for effective email marketing messages, effective direct mail messages, effective print ad messages, etc. - also apply to effective web pages, including:

1. Tell the reader what's in it for him/her. Sell benefits to the reader.
2. Tell the reader about the pain you're going to solve, or the pleasure they're going to enjoy as a result of your product or service.
3. Give the reader a strong reason to take action now (e.g., a great Offer)
4. Make your copy scan-able, because about 85% of people scan, rather than read word-for-word - whether on a website, viewing email, thumbing through a newspaper or magazine, or reviewing their postal mail.

In fact, it's surprising to most Direct Marketers that virtually every day, someone "announces" they've found a new way to improve web results - and virtually every one of those "new ways" are techniques Direct Marketers have been using for centuries.

View our Website Design "before and after" Projects