If you are thinking about ‘what direct marketing is?’, then this blog will help you understand all about direct marketing. This blog covers direct digital marketing tools, direct marketing benefits, direct marketing strategies and direct marketing features. Different from traditional direct marketing, this blog will inform you all about digital direct marketing. Let’s know every detail about digital direct marketing, so keep reading.
Index For This Direct Marketing Blog:
2. Traditional Direct Marketing vs Digital Marketing
3. Direct Marketing Objectives
4. Working of Direct Marketing
5. Digital Marketing Trends 2021
8. Examples of Direct Marketing
9. Strategies for Direct Email Marketing Campaign
What is Direct Marketing?
Direct marketing is a technique where direct marketing tools are used to communicate to individual consumers directly. Rather than relying on third parties such as media publications or mass media modern direct marketing tools involve social media, email, mail, or phone/SMS campaigns to pitch their sales and deliver their messages. The direct marketing channel eliminates the need for middlemen such as the advertising media. The digital direct marketing companies in India allow you to measure the effectiveness of direct marketing with the help of direct marketing tools.
This promotional method involves digital marketing techniques to present the information about the company, product or service you wish to offer to your target customer. The potential customers are targeted with the help of a direct marketing channel and informed about your services.
Some of the common strategies for digital marketing are:
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
3. Website Marketing
4. Content Marketing
5. Social Media Marketing (SMM)
6. Email Marketing
7. Affiliate Marketing
2. Traditional Direct Marketing vs Digital Marketing
Source: creationinfoways.com/
Traditional Direct Marketing
Using physical marketing materials to advertise your company, brand, products or services to consumers are traditional direct marketing strategies. Communicating the data to influence and encourage potential customers to follow a course of action comes under direct marketing techniques. The use of billboards, signage and other physical materials is brought into action when performing direct marketing selling.
Direct marketing presents a tangible item to a group of people that might be interested in the products or services you wish them to avail. Print ads, coupons, mailers, flyers and similar concrete items work as the tools for direct marketing.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing techniques are the modern techniques that involve digital media channels and social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, and PPC. To answer your question ‘what is meant by digital marketing?’; The promotion of brands, products, and services through using content marketing and other digital marketing solutions over the internet is called digital marketing.
It is the modern way of business that targets potential customers and brings in a positive impact. With a lower cost, digital marketing techniques allow you to reach a higher number of interested audiences. The conversion rate is better than the traditional direct marketing methods and lets you increase your revenue.
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3. Direct Marketing Objectives
Responding to your message by sending in a reply card, clicking on a link in an email promotion or social media, or calling a toll-free phone number is the ultimate goal of the direct marketing technique. Industry experts refer to direct marketing campaigns as a “call to action.” Offering the targeted consumer a benefit to receive the direct marketing response is the prime feature of direct marketing over the internet.
A successful direct marketing campaign includes getting the return on investment by providing incentive-based information to the consumer. There are many direct marketing tools and digital marketing tools available for businesses and organisations to use. If one does not work you can make use of any other digital direct marketing tool.
Bonus Blog: 5 Most Productive Digital Marketing Strategies Along With Quick Tips for Startups
4. Working of Direct Marketing
The essential part of direct marketing includes a ‘call to action’. Replacing the traditional physical marketing strategies, Direct digital marketing (DDM) is done exclusively through digital means. Digital direct marketing channels such as email and the web are used to persuade prospective consumers.
Dating back to the latter half of the 19th century, direct marketing technique included catalogues. The catalogue is the oldest form of direct marketing tool. Today, digital marketing tools and techniques have evolved for the better. Taking the example of digital marketing trends 2021, Facebook allows you to select the age, gender, demographics, and interests of the audience you wish to reach. The potential new people you are able to reach with modern digital marketing techniques have a higher rate of visiting your targeted ad page.
Sending bulk personalised content to the populace through social media, email and mail is getting easier these days. With The Complete Guide to Digital ad Technology, you will be able to achieve your digital marketing goals and reach the audience of your choice.
5. Digital Marketing Trends 2021
Various digital marketing strategies are there to reach one key goal. Just like there are different departments in a company that work with one goal of making the organisation successful, digital marketing tools allow you to reach success. Generating traffic, creating awareness and transforming leads to making them a loyal consumer is the prime aim of following digital marketing techniques. Some of the digital marketing trends in 2021 you can follow to become more successful are listed below. These are some of the best digital marketing techniques that can help you reach greater heights by being highly visible online.
1. Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is one of the best techniques to find a loyal customer base for your company, organisation or brand. SEO allows you to reach people that are truly interested in your product through various search results performed on the search engines. Search engine result pages, also called SERPs, have a set of rules to display the online content. If you do it right you can keep your service and products on the top even for years. It is a low-cost technique that delivers high results.
2. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay Per Click is an online advertising model where the advertiser has to pay a certain amount every time a user clicks on the online ad. Paying for the number of clicks and running an advertisement can help you gain traffic. This is the quickest way of finding interested people for your services and products. You can also hire PPC experts to help you reach more people in no time.
3. Website Marketing
Website Marketing can help you find potential customers that can make the purchase of targeted products. Website is the perfect representation of your business idea or your organisation that serves as the biggest marketing asset for owners. Having a good website puts a good impression on the customers you have and increases your credibility. If you don’t have one, you can own a website easily. It will help you increase your business manifolds.
4. Content Marketing
Owning a valuable place in digital marketing, Content Marketing allows you to engage your target audience in the business you own. Videos, Testimonials, Ebooks, Podcasts, Infographics, Social media posts, Blog posts and many more items come under this list. Without content marketing, building your consumer base will be very difficult.
5. Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing allows your business to reach a humongous number of people. Social Media is growing with each passing day and social media marketing for your business can change the way you work by increasing the number of visitors. Social media channels allow you to run contests, ad campaigns, create creative & engaging content and spread your business across the globe.
6. Email Marketing
Email Marketing can be used to communicate with your users who have subscribed to the services you offer or your email newsletter. On average, a person checks their mail 15 times a day according to Forbes. The chances of selling your products increase with the help of email marketing. To craft a professional email address our blog can help you know the steps.
You can read our blog on 15 Amazing Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses. And to learn better you can also take up a digital marketing course. We recommend you read this FAQ before taking up the digital marketing professional course.
6. Direct Marketing Features
There are many features of direct marketing that make it a popular choice for websites, companies and brands. Digital direct marketing allows you to interact directly with the customers and promote your brand, product or service.
1. No Middlemen
Direct marketing tools remove the need for middlemen allowing marketers to connect directly with the customers through different direct marketing channels. No middlemen also mean no commission and thus the companies can also save their costs.
2. Customer Oriented
Direct marketing techniques improve the relationship between customers and sellers. This makes sellers learn more about their audiences and hence, create curated solutions for them. The one-to-one marketing techniques help companies fulfil the custom needs of every customer.
3. Direct channel
The tool for digital marketing creates a direct marketing channel for organisations. With the direct connection, customers can buy products and services without the need for middlemen. Shortening the direct marketing channel reduces distribution cost as well.
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7. Direct Marketing Benefits
Direct marketing tools have several benefits that make digital marketing services popular. Here we have specified 6 direct marketing advantages that make this technique a useful one.
1. Target your ideal customers
Identifying the customers that will most likely avail of your product and pitching your idea to them becomes easy with available direct marketing tools. Customer Segmentation available with direct marketing techniques helps you create a well-targeted direct marketing campaign. Sending custom messages to your subscribers can attract them and encourage them to buy more products and services.
2. Market on a budget
Targeting the specific audience that requires your product can increase customer conversion at a higher rate. Only reaching out to interested people reduces the unnecessary cost of broadcasting. This way you can get more conversions in less amount money with the help of digital marketing techniques.
3. Increase sales to all customers
All the customers including current and lapsed can be reached out with direct marketing tools. A reliable customer record can be maintained to send well-planned promotions and increase the overall sales in turn. You can also re-establish a good relationship with lapsed customers with the help of digital marketing services.
4. Improve customer loyalty
Building a direct relationship with customers becomes easy with digital marketing techniques. Sending birthday cards, discount offers and informing your users about upcoming sales can excite them and build the credibility of your brand. Sending promotional material with a link can increase the relationship between you and your customer.
Related Blog: Top 10 mobile apps for an effortless Customer Management
5. Opportunities to Create new business
Communicating directly with the interested audience is much better than mass marketing as direct marketing methods have a higher success rate. Finding new customers and generating new customer prospects becomes easy. One of the direct marketing objectives is to reach a newer customer base and with the right techniques, you can build a new company. You can boost specific product sales, discontinue unwanted stock and follow up on promotions directly.
6. Measure your sales performance
There are several tools for direct marketing that also allow you to learn about the statistics of the products you have. You can make your advertisements more efficacious with the help of data and adjust your campaign accordingly. Monitoring and reviewing results can help you improve the success rate of your next campaign. You can also hire professionals to work for you and deliver better results.
7. Easy personalization
Providing dynamic content to your customers that is personalised to their needs will help you leverage the benefits of digital marketing tools. This is one of the best benefits of digital marketing that lets you understand customer behaviour. You can personalise the message for your customer at a very low cost and attract their attention easily.
8. Cost-Effective
Obtaining more leads at a lower cost is possible with the help of the right digital marketing strategies. Following the digital marketing trends 2021, you can compete with large companies even at a lower cost making direct digital marketing a beneficial tool.
8. 6 Examples of Direct Marketing
There are many companies that have reached heights by effectively using direct marketing techniques. Here are some of the examples that you can take inspiration from. c
1. Alcoholics Anonymous in Brazil (Anonymous Chatbot Friend)
This is one of the best examples of digital marketing where Alcoholics Anonymous in Brazil with Facebook created a tool to help young Brazilians, between the ages of 13 and 15, falling for alcohol consumption. The ‘Anonymous Friend’ named chatbot on Facebook would start a smart conversation with young users who wanted to understand the harmful effects of alcohol consumption.
The experiences of 34 anonymous alcoholics helped in the launch of this direct marketing campaign where their answers became the basis of the chatbot’s responses. In the first month itself, 100,000 people spoke to the Anonymous Friend and 60% of them were young. Winning the 2017 Global Facebook Awards award, this project became a huge success and showed us that digital marketing is not just for earning money.
2. Toyota Corolla
This direct marketing example shows us that direct marketing gives businesses a great opportunity to showcase themselves. Putting in creativity and planning the event right can make your direct marketing strategy a successful one. Here is a video from Toyota.
3. Dropbox
Direct marketing response from an email may not be thought of, but Dropbox achieved success with this digital marketing tool. Putting in innovation and creativity in a subtle and respectful way can be learnt from this direct marketing example. Helping you learn about the benefits of cloud storage in a concise way, Dropbox’s direct marketing campaign emphasized making your life easier with its services. A simple cartoonized email was used to attract the attention of the audience.
4. Touch Branding
Touch Branding is in Prague and they know how to maximise the potential of their brand. With over 15 years of experience in global campaigns, the brand creates digital marketing strategies that work in their favour. With the copy “We’ll give our blood for good branding” and an amazing graphic design, they were ready to deliver their message. ‘Blood Bag’ (a fake one) were the letters they attached with their direct mail. Two doctors carrying the blood bag with the image below really hooked the potential customers to their brand.
5. Canva
The simplicity of Canva’s email which delivers the message right makes it an amazing digital marketing example. They send email to all the subscribers to advertise the new templates people can use in their presentations and infographics. This email from Canva is simple and yet attracts the attention of audiences.
6. Burger King
Google Home of the Whopper campaign of Burger King made it to the headlines. At the 2017 Cannes Lions, this campaign became the most awarded campaign by winning a Grand Prix, two golds, four silvers and six bronzes, a total of thirteen awards. Promoting the Whopper burger was the ultimate aim of the Google Home of The Whopper campaign. This was a direct marketing campaign achieved by launching a TV ad and video ad on social media using Google Home. Recognising the voice of Burger King seller, the named ingredients of the Whopper. This Burger King direct marketing ad won several awards of international relevance.
9. Strategies for Direct Email Marketing Campaign
Get ready to touch the heights of success with this ultimate guide to help you launch a direct mail campaign:
-> Build Your Contact List
Direct Email Marketing Strategy first needs to have a list of people who you wish to contact. This list your target audience who might be interested in your idea. Numerous email lists by sector can be received from the market. In the list, you need to customise and cut it down to people who genuinely might be interested in your product. An inbound marketing campaign can help you generate leads or you can start lead generation ads on Twitter.
-> Curate an Email
Everything you do to build an email direct marketing strategy matters. From subject line to text, icons and call to action, everything must be thought of carefully and with ease. You can also take up the Email Marketing Course to fire up your direct email marketing campaign.
-> Include a pixel code
To understand the results of your digital marketing campaign you need to analyse the number of people coming from the email you created. Analysing the direct marketing response helps you build a better strategy in future. Entering a code or identification pixel will help you learn about the statistics of your direct email marketing strategy.
-> Test the campaign
Testing your email campaigns is really important. You will be able to understand what really works with the audience you have and over time you can improve the strategy and receive better results. Test with the variations in the subject, images, button, time sent and all the other things you can think of.
-> Launch
Get ready to launch the ongoing email marketing campaign after sending the test emails and making sure everything runs smoothly. You can send the email you created with the help of social networks and other tools of digital advertising. Sending the email at the right time will create a lot of difference to help you get noticed.
-> Consumer responses
Wait for the customer responses. The digital marketing response is not immediate as all the users will not check or react to your email as soon as you send it to them. Wait to receive the response from them before drawing any conclusions.
-> Examine The Results
Analysing the results of the campaign and using the conclusions for the next campaign will help you create an effective direct marketing strategy. Observe the number of people who clicked on your email, opened it and converted. The number of conversions you were able to make can help you understand your direct marketing strategy better.
Direct marketing strategies can help reach greater heights. Sending the email and creating different kinds of campaigns can help you become more visible and test your strategy with the help of direct marketing tools. There are several direct marketing examples to take inspiration from. The ultimate key to success is creating a good digital marketing strategy and executing it. You can also take help from direct marketing companies to reach potential customers with ease.
